Values are present and genuinely held; the architecture for living them in actual strategic and operational decisions appears thin. There are repeated signals that Tika-Pono-Aroha sits 'at the back of the mind' rather than functioning as an evaluation framework, and that tikanga practices in board settings (e.g. karakia) are time-compressed.

Convert Tika-Pono-Aroha from a shared value-anchor into an operational decision rubric the board uses at the point of decision. Anchor a kaupapa Māori conceptual framework in the Strategic Plan so the kaupapa the board lives is visible in the kaupapa the organisation publishes.

• Convert Tika-Pono-Aroha into an explicit decision rubric – each material decision scored against each component, with a weighting applied.
• Clarify the relationship between Tika-Pono-Aroha and underlying kaupapa frameworks (e.g. Te Whare Tapa Whā, Poutama) – which framework for which purpose.
• Restore tikanga integrity in board practice – karakia with time and intention, not tick-box; opening and closing mihi given their weight.
• Strengthen the kaupapa Māori conceptual framework anchor in Strategic Plan v2 (alongside Rec #4).

• Tika-Pono-Aroha remains a values-card rather than a decision tool. The board defaults to intuition under pressure.
• The KPI philosophy gap (Rec #5, Rec #7) has no kaupapa-level resolution frame.
• Tikanga practices in board settings drift toward tokenism.

Several whānau-governance patterns appear to be present, such as the trustee-Secretary whānau connection and the Manager-Bookkeeper whānau relationship. These relationships are kaupapa-grounded; the gap is that there does not appear to be an explicit process for managing the resulting conflicts of interest. Document reviews flag the Trust Deed red on tikanga-based dispute resolution and amber on substantial transactions thresholds. Frame this as making implicit tikanga explicit, not as an inherent issue of whānau patterns.

Make the whānau-governance tikanga the board currently holds implicitly into explicit, written process around this. Whānau-governance patterns are kaupapa-grounded and not inherently problematic – the absence of an explicit process for surfacing and managing them is the opportunity. Also establish tikanga-based dispute resolution in the Trust Deed.

• Add tikanga-based dispute resolution to the Trust Deed.
• Add explicit whānau-on-staff and whānau-on-board tikanga to the Board Charter – how transparency is held and when conflicts of interest need to be managed.
• Publish and maintain a Conflict of Interest register with all dual-role relationships declared.
• Reset the Conflict of Interest protocol for the Manager Employment committee – partial step-aside (out of a specific decision) rather than a total step-aside from the whole committee.

• Implicit whānau patterns remain a reputational risk the board has no formal process to manage.
• A future dispute has no tikanga-based resolution process – defaulting to secular dispute norms.
• Unresolved conflict-of-interest patterns accumulate; each new instance adds weight to the existing ambiguity.
• The Manager Employment committee functions weakly because the current protocol is requiring one key member to sit out of decisions due to a personal conflict of interest.

There were five amber or red items noted in the Board Charter and Trust Deed reviews that all concern authority and delegation. This was also raised in the surveys and interviews as an issue. Worth resolving as one coordinated workstream rather than five separate policy edits.

Move the board from an approach based on personal discipline to based on a mature architecture – written roles, written delegations, written succession. This brings clarity to who is authorised to decide what, on whose behalf.

• Consolidate the Chairperson position description into a single section.
• Establish a Chairperson delegated-authorities schedule covering urgent decisions, media, and between-meeting authority.
• Establish a Manager delegation schedule with spending and contract thresholds and what must come back to the board.
• Define the Board Secretary position description and resolve the reporting line.
• Establish a board skills gap matrix to guide composition and wider-board succession.

• The Chair operates without a formal mandate for urgent decisions or media response.
• Manager delegations stay implied, which keeps accountability narrative-based rather than threshold-based.
• The Board Secretary role stays contested and structurally ambiguous.
• Wider-board recruitment stays guesswork without a skills matrix.
• Chair succession stays unplanned – a serious key person risk.

Across the document reviews and interviews the Board Secretary role was repeatedly flagged as under-specified – the Board Charter references the role only briefly, the reporting line is unclear (i.e. whether independent of the Manager or sitting under the Manager), and there is no agreed recruitment process. Several trustees raised differing models during this engagement.

Resolve the structural ambiguity around the Board Secretary role. A formal position description, a clear reporting line, and an agreed process for filling the role would lift the role from contested-and-implied to defined-and-accountable.

• Draft a formal Board Secretary position description covering meeting support, minute-taking, compliance filings, records management, and trustee induction support.
• Resolve the reporting line – agree whether the role reports independently to the board, sits under the Manager, or operates as a hybrid.
• Decide whether a formal recruitment process is needed (open advertisement, position re-tendered) or whether the role is filled by appointment from the existing pool.
• Update the Board Charter to reflect the agreed shape of the role.

• The role stays structurally ambiguous; the next dispute over its scope or accountabilities has no structural strength to lean on.
• Compliance and records discipline depends on an under-specified role, which is a quiet operational risk.
• Wider-board induction quality varies depending on who is currently holding the role.

Repeated signals across the engagement that the board has its own independent conversations once the Manager leaves the room, and that both sides feel they are missing each other's perspective. The board's cohesion as a group is genuinely strong (Pou Tokomanawa is green); this is about extending that cohesion to include the Manager at the right moments rather than fixing how the board functions internally.

Restore Manager presence in the full board meeting. The current pattern of the Manager attending only briefly produces a Manager-board accountability dynamic that neither side is wanting. Full presence at meetings builds shared context, reduces the need for other catch-ups, and means board's strategic discussions can be informed by the operational reality.

• Default to Manager attending the full board meeting, with clearly defined 'board only time' periods where the Manager is excused.
• Agree explicit principles for which agenda items always include the Manager (strategy, accountability, kaupapa, anything the Manager is materially accountable for).
• Build a brief 'board only time' kōrero only if needed, rather than as the default.
• Ensure a regular Chair–Manager 1-on-1 cadence outside of board meetings so the relational layer has its own process.

• The dynamic neither side wants keeps reproducing itself.
• The board's strategic conversation continues to be informed by partial Manager context.
• The Manager continues to receive board outcomes second-hand, weakening alignment between governance decisions and operational delivery.

A KPI and governance dashboard was the most cited governance gap raised across the engagement. It came up independently in interviews, scored lowest on the survey item asking whether milestones are clear, and was flagged red across multiple document reviews on SMART goals, measurement, accountability and monitoring.

Establish shared board-Manager agreement of what success looks like, grounded in Tika-Pono-Aroha. A KPI framework unlocks accountability, dashboard adoption, and a more developmental performance-review cadence.

• Translate the strategic priorities into SMART measures across categories such as cultural, social, financial, operational, and stakeholder outcomes.
• Use Tika-Pono-Aroha as a weighting frame so the dashboard carries the kaupapa lens, not just operational data.
• Visualise as a traffic-light governance dashboard refreshed monthly, with a one-line narrative under each indicator.
• Identify the specific indicators and whether information can come from existing systems (e.g. Contract delivery data, Xero outputs, management reporting) or requires new data collection.

• The board has no clear approach to hold the Manager accountable other than narrative.
• The Strategic Plan remains aspirational without translation into operational reality.
• Performance review continues to be experienced as containment rather than development.
• The Manager is asked for measures the board has not been clear on – the relationship strains both ways.

An Annual Board Calendar has been begun (a real strength) but is not yet fully populated. Survey signal: an Annual Calendar was the most-named governance support that trustees said they were missing. Document reviews flagged the absence of a visible policy review schedule and the lack of a mapped year-of-governance rhythm.

Build out an Annual Board Calendar that maps the key governance milestones across the year – strategy review, AGM, audit cycle, KPI review checkpoints, kaupapa moments. Gives the board a single shared rhythm to plan against and reduces the year-end scramble.

• Map the full year of governance commitments – strategy, financial, audit, kaupapa milestones, statutory dates.
• Layer the policy review cycle into the Annual Board Calendar (which policies refresh in which quarter).
• Surface the KPI dashboard refresh cadence (Rec
• Make the Annual Board Calendar visible to the wider organisation, not just the board, so operational rhythms can sync to it.

• The board continues to react to milestones rather than plan against them.
• Policy review continues to be ad hoc.
• The KPI framework when built (Rec #5) has nowhere structural to land for refresh cadence.

Document reviews flagged multiple red items on SMART goals, accountability, monitoring, resourcing and sequencing. There appears to be a phased growth plan internal to the Management team that has not yet been formally adopted by the board.

Translate the kaupapa vision and strategic priorities into time-bound, owned, measurable goals. Close the gap between what the board agrees on (the kaupapa) and what the board is executing against (the strategy). Where Rec #5 is about building the measurement framework, Rec #4 is about building the plan that the framework is measuring.

• Translate the strategic priorities into SMART goals for the next 12 months.
• Add 5/10/20-year horizons to differentiate near-term execution (pae tata) from longer-term direction (pae tawhiti).
• Assign accountability and ownership per goal – board lead, Manager lead, or joint.
• Add a plan-on-a-page visual overview suitable for staff, whānau, marae, partners, and funders.
• Document the income-diversification logic explicitly, including the sequencing (credibility → tender profile → diversification).
• Make sure that there is Board and Manager agreement around the logic and sequencing of the plan as it is built.

• Strategy continues to be experienced as 'here and there' rather than sequenced.
• Kaupapa alignment continues to mask strategic drift.
• The phased growth logic stays in the Manager's head rather than being adopted by the board.
• Income diversification – a board-level outcome – stays structurally unsupported because the underlying plan is unwritten.

A KPI and governance dashboard was the most cited governance gap raised across the engagement. It came up independently in interviews, scored lowest on the survey item asking whether milestones are clear, and was flagged red across multiple document reviews on SMART goals, measurement, accountability and monitoring.

Establish shared board-Manager agreement of what success looks like, grounded in Tika-Pono-Aroha. A KPI framework unlocks accountability, dashboard adoption, and a more developmental performance-review cadence.

• Translate the strategic priorities into SMART measures across categories such as cultural, social, financial, operational, and stakeholder outcomes.
• Use Tika-Pono-Aroha as a weighting frame so the dashboard carries the kaupapa lens, not just operational data.
• Visualise as a traffic-light governance dashboard refreshed monthly, with a one-line narrative under each indicator.
• Identify the specific indicators and whether information can come from existing systems (e.g. Contract delivery data, Xero outputs, management reporting) or requires new data collection.

• The board has no clear approach to hold the Manager accountable other than narrative.
• The Strategic Plan remains aspirational without translation into operational reality.
• Performance review continues to be experienced as containment rather than development.
• The Manager is asked for measures the board has not been clear on – the relationship strains both ways.

Several signals across the engagement suggest the current design is producing patterns neither side wants – a Manager performance review experienced as surveillance, a meeting structure that minimises the Manager's time in the room, and limited shared time on accountability and strategy. The kaupapa for the relationship is strong on both sides; the architecture for it appears under-built.

Strengthen the structural design of the Manager-board relationship so the approach supports accountability and development rather than producing avoidance dynamics on either side.

• Move Manager performance review from quarterly review to annual review supported by a quarterly data dashboard (Rec #5).
• Restore Manager presence in full board meetings, or at minimum in strategic and accountability items.
• Establish a monthly Chair-Manager 1-on-1 with a published agenda and recorded decisions.
• Surface and resolve the philosophical KPI mismatch (growth and MOUs vs outcomes and impact) within the KPI framework (Rec #5) so the dashboard lands as a negotiated artefact.

• The current pattern keeps looping. Each performance review reinforces the existing posture.
• The Manager's strengths remain insufficiently visible to the board because of limited structured time together.
• External relationship risk stays concentrated on the Manager because no architecture redistributes it (see Rec #9).
• The relationship continues to be experienced as stressed by both sides.

There is currently no Chair successor, no deputy Chair, and an unfilled seventh seat. The Board Charter review confirms the skills matrix is absent and wider-board succession is absent. Personality composition signal: the board sits heavily on Thinking-Judging types and lacks Sensing-Feeling balance.

Move from no planned board composition to active succession planning. Address three specific structural gaps: no Chair successor, no deputy Chair, seventh board seat unfilled. Open a rangatahi pipeline.

• Reinstate a deputy Chair role – the lowest-friction, highest-impact move.
• Run a skills gap assessment (from Rec #6) and recruit the seventh seat against identified gaps.
• Hold a tikanga-led conversation about long-tenured trustee rotation – honouring service while securing whakapapa continuity.
• Commit to a rangatahi pipeline (e.g. via TWH's Ka Eke Poutama).
• Privilege Sensing-Feeling profiles (ISFJ / INFJ / ESFJ) in candidate selection to balance the existing board composition.

• Chair succession unplanned remains a key person risk.
• The seventh seat sits empty.
• Composition stays thin on Sensing-Feeling profiles – limited relational-nuance and maintenance-focused voices.
• The rangatahi pipeline opportunity is missed or delayed.

Stakeholder communication and involvement in strategy was the lowest scoring of all survey questions and this was reinforced in all five interviews. Document reviews cannot see this because the documents do not structurally include marae.

Having a structural mechanism for marae and iwi members – the people the organisation exists to serve – to provide thinking directly to the board will mean the marae and iwi member voice is more directly present in strategic planning, rather than only being heard through staff.

• Adopt a proposed marae rep forum – one representative per marae coming together as a board sub-committee, alongside any iwi member board representative.
• Have a standing board agenda item: 'Feedback from the marae rep forum.'
• Have a formal strategic planning day (annual wānanga or equivalent) where marae voice directly feeds in.
• Consider piloting with two marae separately first before scaling.

• A misalignment between process and kaupapa intensifies. The organisation exists to serve marae and iwi members; they currently have limited structural voice in its governance.
• Strategic planning continues to be Manager-and-board only.
• Staff remain the main relational carrier of the marae connection – a concentrated relational risk that excludes the board.

Mahau was the lowest-scoring dimension on the survey, and partnerships scored low within it. Document reviews flagged engagement with affiliated groups as amber. Marae and other iwi relationships are now expected and not yet explicit on how they are to be managed.

Shift institutional partnership-holding from sole-Manager to board-led where appropriate – marae, hapū, other iwi, Council, Governance agencies, at governance level, data infrastructure partners. Both sides agree the board should lead governance level relationships while the Manager should manage at the operational level; this recommendation makes that agreement clear.

• Stand up a marae relationship plan aligned to new contract expectations.
• Allocate specific board members as partnership leads, leveraging existing relationships as starting points.
• Design a board-dinner or formal-hui model for partnership development.
• Reconsider the partnerships KPI – to balance a focus on purely MOU count with actual relationship quality (linked to Rec #5).

• Marae and other iwi relationships (now expected) remains unclear.
• Board-to-board partnerships stay underdeveloped.
• Partnership measurement continues to misfit, straining the Manager-board relationship.
• External relationship risk stays concentrated on the Manager.