The National Board Charter (the opening part of the Governance Framework) and the strategy both commit the Board to Te Tiriti. In the survey, members split 4 and 4 on whether that commitment guides the Board yet, and feedback from board members showed Board hui do not always feel culturally safe.

Cultural safety is affecting people at the Board table now, which is why this sits in the first 90 days. The Co-Chairs lead it, so settling who the Co-Chairs will be (Top Rec 1, the succession plan) comes first. Agree the role of Hauhake before the scope of the new National Adviser role (a paid role the Deputy Chair is moving into) is confirmed in October, and before the next new members are inducted.

Every member, Māori and non-Māori, can take part in karakia, tikanga and kōrero without feeling left out or unsure, and Hauhake's voice shapes the Board's work rather than only opening its hui.

• Ask the Co-Chairs to give the two Co-Māngai who hold the Hauhake seat a planned place in the opening of every Board hui, rather than a courtesy mention.
• Agree with Hauhake what more influence would mean in practice: e.g. a standing voice on the Strategic Workplan, on induction, and on the work of the new National Adviser role.
• Have the board confirm a two-pager around what REAP Aotearoa's Te Tiriti and tikanga framework is: the models it uses, the kawa (protocol) for hui, and the Board's expression of its own Tiriti responsibilities.
• Schedule regular Board learning sessions to strengthen understanding and practice of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and tikanga Māori within governance, as was asked for in the survey responses.

• The board members with the deepest understanding of and care for Te Tiriti keep feeling left out, and go quiet.
• The written commitment stays as words on a page for the people it was written for.
• The Board asks its 13 REAPs to do what it has not yet done itself.

Two policies in the Governance Framework show a review date of 2025, which has passed. The July 2026 board pack has an item called 'policy review per review cycle' but names no policy under it, so nothing shows the Board which policies are due.

The table is small and depends on no other action, so it can be done straight away. It also gives the Board a place to track the three short additions to the Governance Framework (expenses, the secretary's duties and officers' liability cover) as the Suggestion to align the Governance Framework to the Constitution adds them.

The Governance Framework stays current on a schedule the Board can see in every board pack.

• Add a one-page table of every policy with its approval date and next review date to the front of the Governance Framework and to the board pack.

Policies pass their review date unnoticed.

The Governance Framework says Board members serve 2 years; the Constitution and the REAP Handbook say 3. The full list of gaps is in the review of the Governance Framework in the Document Review section of this dashboard.

The corrections are small and one Board member can mark them up. The next AGM is the natural place to adopt both documents together.

The Constitution and the Governance Framework agree, and a new member reading both finds one answer about their own term.

• Nominate one Board member to mark up the corrections to the Constitution and to bring the Governance Framework into line with it, and bring both to the next AGM.
• Add three short lines to the Governance Framework: what a member may claim in expenses, who holds the secretary's duties, and whether the organisation protects its officers from personal liability.

A new member reads two documents that disagree about their own term.

The Deputy Chair is moving into a new paid role, National Adviser, to work on growing REAP coverage, making the case for funding and showing impact. The role will sit alongside the small Tira Whakahaere group. Feedback from board members raised a concern that the role could become one-sided, especially on Te Tiriti. That concern is about the structure, not about the person taking the role.

The role's scope is being confirmed in October, so the decision on who it reports to is close. It runs alongside Top Rec 5 (Tira Whakahaere authorities), which confirms the group the role will sit beside, and Top Rec 4 (Te Tiriti practice), which settles the place of Hauhake.

A role with a wide brief is shaped and reviewed by the whole Board, not only by the Co-Chairs, the Deputy Chair and the Director, and advice to the Board on Te Tiriti comes from the Co-Chairs and Hauhake.

• When the National Adviser role's scope is confirmed in October, specifically note who the role reports to and who reviews their work.
• Clarify how advice on Te Tiriti should be routed – e.g. through the Co-Chairs and Hauhake rather than through the National Adviser.

• A role with a wide brief is shaped by the same 3 or 4 people.
• Te Tiriti practice across the REAPs is not being advised on by those with the remit to provide it.

The Governance Framework holds an induction policy that covers Te Tiriti and the role of Hauhake (the Board's Māori advisory group). Feedback from board members showed that new members do not consistently receive it, and 5 of the 8 members surveyed have served 2 years or less.

Newer members contribute less than they could while they are unsure of their role, and the Board asks its member REAPs for good governance while its own induction is inconsistent. Have the induction ready within 6 months, in time for whoever fills a Co-Chair vacancy, and after Top Rec 2 (Strategic Workplan leadership) and Top Rec 4 (Te Tiriti practice at the Board table) have settled what a new member is being inducted into.

Every new member arrives knowing what their seat is for, who they work with and how the Board is run, and hears the Board's Te Tiriti commitment from Hauhake directly.

• Run the induction process that the Governance Framework already describes, for every new member. Pair each new member with an established member for their first year.
• Add a short recorded kōrero from Hauhake on what Te Tiriti and Hauhake mean for a REAP board, followed by a face-to-face conversation where possible. Offer the same recording to all 13 REAPs.
• Once a year, in a session with Board members only, ask: does everyone know what their seat is for?
• TWH can run the Te Tiriti and governance part of the induction with Hauhake, if the Board would like outside support for it.

• Newer members keep contributing less than they could, and some stay unsure whether they should be there.
• The Board asks its member REAPs for good governance while its own induction is inconsistent.
• Hauhake stays as just a chapter in a handbook.

The Board almost never disagrees out loud. Survey feedback described members not wanting to make waves, so feelings come out after the meeting. In the July 2026 board pack, the decision on audit arrangements came with no written paper.

The half-page decision paper needs nothing else in place and can start at the next meeting. Inviting disagreement grows with trust, and trust grows as the other recommendations are put in place: members who lead part of the Strategic Workplan and feel safe at the table are more likely to say what they think.

Differing views reach the Board table rather than a quiet conversation afterwards, and every decision with legal weight has a paper behind it.

• Give every "For Decision" item a half-page paper: the issue, the options, a recommendation, and a proposed resolution to vote on. The July 2026 paper on the Deputy Chair's move to the National Adviser role is a good model.
• Keep board packs to what the decisions need, and set a written expectation that members read them before the meeting.
• Add a short "anything left unsaid?" round before each decision. Ask the Co-Chairs to bring back to the table what they hear afterwards.
• Agree on a set way of testing the big strategic items before the Board decides. One member suggested in the survey a frame such as SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results) or 'thinking keys'. Thinking keys are a fixed set of questions that make the Board look at a proposal from angles it would not take by habit. The aim is testing that opens up views rather than producing another yes.
• TWH can provide a decision-paper template and a simple way of testing the big items, if that would help the Board start.

• The Board keeps agreeing in the room, but doubting quietly, or afterwards.
• Decisions with legal weight are made without a paper behind them.
• Quiet members stay quiet, and the Board loses the views it most needs.

Tira Whakahaere shapes the Board's papers and meets the Director every fortnight. The Governance Framework holds a Terms of Reference for it, but feedback from board members showed the Terms of Reference is not well known, so it does not guide what the committee does. No document lists what the Co-Chairs may decide between meetings.

The Terms of Reference already exists, so confirming both authorities is quick. Finish it before the end of October, when the new National Adviser role (a paid role the Deputy Chair is moving into) is set up alongside Tira Whakahaere. Top Rec 1 (the succession plan) changes the same part of the Governance Framework, so the two can be done together.

Decisions that shape the Board's papers are made on authority the whole Board has agreed, and trust in the Board's process rests on written rules rather than on relationships alone.

• Check whether the existing Tira Whakahaere Terms of Reference describes what the committee actually does. Then table it at the next Board meeting if so. Add a standing 2-minute report from Tira Whakahaere to the Board.
• Give the fortnightly Tira Whakahaere meeting a clear agenda and a time limit. Invite the Audit & Risk Committee Chair or others when a current issue needs them to be involved.
• Note down the key areas of delegations needed for the Co-Chairs (i.e. what the Co-Chairs may decide on their own, and any limits) Use the same format as the Director's.
• Set a term of office for the Chair and Co-Chair roles in the Governance Framework.

• Decisions that shape the Board's papers are made in Tira Whakahaere, a meeting most of the Board cannot see into.
• The Co-Chairs act between meetings on authority that no document gives them – creating risk to them and to the board.
• Trust in the Board's process depends on relationships rather than rules.

The Risk Register names the big barriers to the organisation, such as government funding being opened to competition and reliance on key people, and the strategy mentions none of them. The strategy is titled 2026–2028, but the plan under it covers 2026 only and shows no costs.

The Board does not yet have the rolling 3-year plan that the Board member position description asks for and the Membership Agreement (clause 4.1b) commits it to keeping. The Board already plans to review the outside environment (funding, government policy, demand) in October, which is the natural moment to do this work.

The Board holds a strategy that names its barriers and focuses on overcoming them, and a plan for 2027 and 2028 that matches the risks in the Risk Register and the actions in the Strategic Workplan.

• At the next strategy session, note which risks in the Risk Register constrain the goals in the plan.
• Develop the "beyond 2026" section of the plan, with goals for 2027 and 2028, and the rough resourcing needs for them.
• Engage TWH to conduct a thorough Strategy Review process that will help the board arrive at a robust Strategic Plan while also taking most of the load off the board to invent the process, diagnose specific areas to improve and then think of all the required improvements.
• The Board plans to review the outside environment (funding, government policy, demand) in October. Attach that review to the strategy as a one-page appendix and refresh it each year.

• The Risk Register and the workplan move separately.
• 2027 arrives without a plan in place for it.
• The strategy focuses on business-as-usual or doesn't work on the most critical things to overcome and pursue.

The Strategic Workplan names the Director on 23 of its 27 lines. The Governance Framework requires the Board to check progress on the Strategic Workplan at every meeting, and in the July 2026 board pack the progress column is blank.

The Director, the Co-Chairs and the Deputy Chair carry most of the work today, and newer members have no part of the plan to lead. Settling leadership and reporting first is what makes Top Rec 7 (result measures) and Top Rec 8 (written notes on the finance and risk papers) possible, because both need a Board that checks progress at every meeting.

Every part of the Strategic Workplan has a named leader and the resourcing to get it done, and the Board reads real progress at every meeting rather than a general 'in progress' note.

• For each numbered action in the Strategic Workplan, determine the leadership of it – e.g. the Director, a Committee, a Board member or a new role or structure as needed. For progress reporting on each, say what has been done and what is getting in the way, rather than just a general "in progress" comment.
• Provide a green, amber or red colour code, and put this in the board pack.
• Give every hui an agenda, noting the key outcomes, and ideally pre-drafted resolution statement to focus in on decision-making. This also goes for the short online hui between Board meetings (the Zui).
• Ask the Co-Chairs to lead progress conversation at each meeting.

• The Board cannot see whether its strategy is working.
• The Director, the Co-Chairs and the Deputy Chair keep carrying most of the work, because the Strategic Workplan gives other members no part to lead.
• The approach to getting this done continues to rely on individual board members rather than developing effective, resourced structures to get the work done.
• Newer members never find the place where they add value.

The Strategic Workplan's 27 results are almost all tasks to finish, such as a paper written. Only one is a number the Board can track from year to year. The Strategic Workplan calls its measures SMART Results (its name for the milestones under each goal), and the Director's appraisal is meant to use them.

Without result measures the Board reports activity and calls it progress, and the Director's appraisal rests on measures no one has written down. Agree them within 6 months, after Top Rec 2 settles who leads each part of the Strategic Workplan, so that each measure has an owner.

The Board can tell, year by year, whether each of its 4 strategic goals is achieved and impactful, and can answer a funder's question about impact with results rather than milestones.

• For each of the 4 goals, agree on one or two measures that the Board wants to count or hear to show whether it was actually achieved and impactful, not just whether work was done towards it.
• Add the result measures as a short block above the list of milestones in the Strategic Workplan, and name which ones the Director's appraisal will use.
• Show the result measures on the same page as the colour-marked workplan, so progress and results can be read together.
• Regarding progress measures, some options exist already in the organisation's own data: ACE (adult and community education) hours delivered against target, months of working capital across the REAPs, officials and Ministers engaged, and the REAPs' own governance self-review ratings.
• TWH's Board-level Indicators service can help the Board choose and set up the first measures, so the work does not fall on the Director alone.

• The Board keeps reporting activity and calling it progress.
• The Director's appraisal rests on measures no one has written down.
• Funders ask for impact and the Board answers with milestones.

The July 2026 board pack reported a $50k profit against a budgeted $1.7k, with no written explanation of the variance. The audit is also 2 years behind, and much of the context around finance and risk is currently provided verbally.

Written context will reduce reliance on verbal explanations and create a record Board members can refer back to. This is particularly timely with a change in the Audit & Risk Committee Chair approaching, and the Committee is well placed to lead the work.

Strengthen financial oversight by making significant movements and risks more visible and easier to question. Reporting REAP Aotearoa's own months of equity would also reflect the viability measure the REAP Handbook asks member REAPs to monitor.

• Add a half-page "what to notice" note from the Audit & Risk Committee Chair on top of the finance papers: 3 bullets on the profit and loss, 1 on the balance sheet, 1 on any risk that has changed.
• Add 2 lines under the balance sheet: months of working capital, and months of equity. These are the figures REAP Aotearoa asks each REAP to report, and they say how long the organisation could keep running on its reserves.
• Use the change of Audit & Risk Committee Chair to write down how the committee checks the quarterly reports, so the practice survives the handover.
• Bring the audit timetable to the Board as a paper, with the dates by which the 2025 accounts will be filed.

• Members approve accounts they have not been helped to read.
• The practice of checking the accounts leaves with the outgoing Audit & Risk Committee Chair.
• The Board asks its REAPs for a standard it does not show for itself.

REAP Aotearoa's one employee is titled National Director, a title that can read as a Board role. The Governance Framework already uses both titles side by side, Te Tumu Herenga Tāngata / National Director, 32 times, in the appointment procedure, the appraisal procedure and the position description. A change of title touches each of those and the delegations schedule.

Deciding before the new National Adviser role starts lets the two role titles be settled together. The REAP Handbook already gives the role a te reo title, Te Tumu Herenga Tāngata, beside National Director. The Board needs to decide which of the two titles comes first, and to agree with Hauhake how Te Tumu Herenga Tāngata is translated into English.

Anyone outside REAP Aotearoa can see that this role manages the organisation rather than governs it.

• Ask the Co-Chairs and the National Director to bring the Board 2 -3 options for a new title for the National Director role, such as Chief Executive or National Manager, or a te reo Māori title agreed with Hauhake.
• The Handbook already uses a te reo title for this role, Te Tumu Herenga Tāngata, alongside National Director. Decide whether the te reo title should become the primary one.
• Decide the new title for the National Director role before the new National Adviser role (a paid role the Deputy Chair is moving into) starts, so both role titles are settled together.
• Change the National Director title in the Governance Framework, the delegations schedule, the position description and the employment agreement at the same time.

• Funders, agencies and new Board members keep reading the title National Director as the title of a Board member (given 'director' in the formal governance role title for companies).
• The boundary between governing and managing blurs a little more each time the title National Director is used.

The Constitution, the Risk Register and the Governance Framework all name Board succession as a risk, but none describes a process to follow. The Director is the organisation's only employee, and the Risk Register does not yet list the Director role as a succession risk. The board documents, the survey and the Board's own feedback all named succession as a significant risk.

A Co-Chair may step out by the end of September 2026, so the Board may need this plan within weeks. Do it alongside Top Rec 5 (Tira Whakahaere and Co-Chair authorities), because both change the Co-Chairs' section of the Governance Framework. Top Rec 2 (Strategic Workplan leadership) helps too, because sharing the work across the Board spreads the knowledge that now sits with a few people.

The Board could lose a Co-Chair, the Deputy Chair or the Director at short notice and still know, that day, who acts and what happens next. The last Co-Chair appointment took 6 to 8 months; a plan means the next one does not.

• Agree in writing what happens if a Co-Chair steps down – who acts, how the vacancy is filled, and by when.
• Set staggered terms for the two Co-Chair roles, and a stated term in the Governance Framework.
• Develop the skills matrix the Board has discussed (TWH can provide a template), and have the Audit & Risk Committee bring it to the Board with a brief annual succession risk review.
• Add the Director role to the Risk Register as a succession risk. Make sure the Director's key files, contacts and passwords are written down so someone else could step in.

• A Co-Chair leaves and the Board spends months without a settled leadership model.
• The knowledge that sits with two or three people leaves the board when they leave.
• The next appointment repeats a six-to-eight-month process with no clearer role description.

Opportunities for rangatahi was the lowest-scoring item in the survey, and the Board keeps recruiting from the same pool. The tuakana–teina arrangement (a newer person mentored by an experienced one) that the Board has planned for the Hauhake seat is the one pipeline already in motion.

REAPs struggle to find suitable board members and Managers, and the network's own young people find their way into governance elsewhere. The succession plan in Top Rec 1 is the place to write the first line of this pathway, so the two can be done together.

The Board and the 13 REAPs have a growing pool of young governors from their own communities, and the tuakana–teina model (a newer person mentored by an experienced one) is a Board-wide habit rather than an arrangement for the Hauhake seat alone.

• Decide whether the tuakana–teina arrangement planned for the Hauhake seat (a newer person mentored alongside an experienced one) should become the Board-wide way of growing new members.
• When the Board writes its succession plan, add one line on how young people from the 13 REAPs can be brought toward national governance.
• Partner with TWH around extending the Ka Eke Poutama programme into regions as a practical and low risk way of building the rangatahi governance pipeline. Seek that this be opened to non-Māori as well to catch a broader pipeline of young governors for REAPs.

• The Board keeps recruiting from the same pool.
• REAPs struggle to find suitable board members and Managers.
• The network's own young people find their way into governance elsewhere.

In the last 12 months REAP Aotearoa stepped in to support 3 or 4 member REAPs, using the support clauses of the Membership Agreement (6.1 to 6.3), and not all of that support was welcomed by the REAPs. The governance problems behind those cases were at the member REAPs themselves. Pieces of a pathway already exist in the Membership Agreement and the Quality Issue Flowchart it points to, in the letter the Audit & Risk Committee sends each REAP every year, and in the REAP Handbook's Telephone Tree, but no single document joins them.

All 13 REAPs share the Government core funding, so a public failure in one REAP is a risk to every REAP. The next case could arrive at any time and draw an unplanned amount of the national Board's time. Board members' own feedback asks for an agreed pathway, and the work depends on nothing else, so it can start now.

The Board supports a member REAP through one agreed pathway that starts early, so support arrives before a problem becomes a risk to the whole network, and no REAP is surprised by what happens when expectations are not met.

• Put the existing pieces on one page. Start with the early warning signs the Board watches for: the Audit & Risk Committee's annual letter, the self-review and peer review reports, and what comes through the Telephone Tree. Then the informal support that comes first. Then the point at which the Membership Agreement's formal steps begin. One survey respondent has already drafted the bones of this.
• Say plainly, before it is needed, what clause 6.3 of the Membership Agreement means for a REAP that receives help: the Board may appoint a supervising manager or a governance adviser, and the REAP pays for that help. Feedback showed support was not always welcomed; the cost may be part of why.
• Name which committee owns the pathway, and who speaks for the national Board when it is used.
• Set up a regular connection between the national Board and the boards of the 13 REAPs, building on the funded attendance of REAP board members at the national conference.
• At the national conference, give board members and operational staff separate workshop time, then time to learn from each other.

• The next struggling REAP is supported without an agreed pathway, and the support is not always welcome, as happened in the last 12 months.
• A public failure in one REAP puts the shared Government core funding for all 13 REAPs at risk.
• The Board keeps being pulled into operational crises it could have seen coming.

The Communication Policy requires monthly updates to REAPs, while the REAP Handbook sets out a Telephone Tree connecting each REAP Chair with a national Board member at least once a term. Board feedback indicated that this approach has been used previously but was not sustained, with some REAP Chairs not responding to contact.

Relationships (the survey's Mahau section) was the second-lowest scoring part of the survey, and feedback showed member REAPs in many cases do not see what the national Board does for them. The update costs little and can start after the next meeting, once Top Rec 2 (Strategic Workplan leadership and progress reporting) gives the Board progress to report.

Member REAPs receive a regular, plain account of what the national Board is doing for them.

• After each face-to-face meeting, send a half-page governance update or a recorded video update from the Co-Chairs to every REAP Chair and Manager.
• Put a REAP-facing item on every face-to-face agenda: a visit from a REAP Chair or Manager, or a member update.

Member REAPs keep seeing the national Board only when it steps in to help address problems.

Feedback from board members suggested the national Board and individual REAPs may both be talking to the same MPs and agencies without knowing it. The Membership Agreement (October 2024, clause 4.1e) makes it the Board's job to decide who represents REAP Aotearoa on national bodies and agency groups.

The map is not urgent, so it can follow the Board's more pressing actions. It also reduces the Board's reliance on the Director's relationships with outside organisations, which today sit with one person.

The Board holds one view of which relationships each level of the network owns, and on what topics.

• Once a year, list on one page which national and regional agencies the national Board talks to and which ones the REAPs talk to, so the Board can see the overlaps.
• Name the Board's stakeholder groups on one page (member REAPs, core funders, sector partners) with who owns each relationship.

• The national Board and individual REAPs keep talking to the same agencies without knowing it.
• Engagement with outside organisations stays dependent on the Director's relationships.