At OxLEP, our structure presents our organisation with the ability to engage our private and public sector partners (sitting across our Board, committees and sub-groups) ensuring we are able to draw upon a wide-variety of expertise aligned to governance process.
Below, we outline the organisational structure that sits across OxLEP and how it feeds into our overall decision-making process.
Our Board:
The strategic leadership and direction of the organisation is provided by our Board of Directors. All Board directors are registered as directors of the company ‘OxLEP Ltd’ with Companies House.
In addition, the Section 151 Officer from the accountable body (Oxfordshire County Council) and the BEIS Area Lead for Oxfordshire both have the right to attend and speak at Board meetings, but not vote. Our Board meets at least quarterly, with additional meetings as required.
Membership of the Board, how meetings are to be conducted and the roles and responsibilities of Directors are set out in the Articles of Association and By-Laws of OxLEP Ltd. The responsibilities of Board Directors are set out in the Code of Conduct, which is reviewed and updated where appropriate by our Nominations and Personnel Committee. The Board carries out a review of its effectiveness on an annual basis, making changes where appropriate. In line with best practice it is intended that this review will be conducted by an external body every three years, to ensure independent validation.
Board members are not remunerated for their time, but can claim reasonable business expenses when they are acting on OxLEP business.
All directors are required to declare interests which may conflict with their role on the Board - these declarations are published on this website and are reviewed and updated on a regular basis. Our Corporate Management Team also complete declarations as they are involved in facilitating the decision making process, as does the Section 151 Officer.
View our Code of Conduct document
Our committees:
Nominations and Personnel Committee
The Board has established a Nominations and Personnel Committee to review and report on key issues dealing with the recruitment and retention of Board directors and our staff. The Committee is chaired by our Deputy Chairman and includes four other non-executive directors.
The Committee is responsible for overseeing the recruitment and performance of the Board of directors and reports back to the Board on that subject. It also conducts the annual review of Board effectiveness and makes recommendations to the Board based on their findings. It reviews the policies and procedures for recruiting, managing and remunerating our staff, including the Chief Executive, and makes recommendations to the Board.
Finance and Audit Committee
The Finance and Audit Committee provides internal challenge and scrutiny to the financial processes and procedures within our organisation. It is chaired by the Board Chairman and also includes four other non-executive directors.
The Committee reviews financial regulations and procedures to ensure a sound control environment is in place and also receives and considers the reports from both internal and external audit on their independent assessments of that control environment.
The S151 Officer from the accountable body is invited to attend all meetings along with OxLEP staff involved in relevant processes. Our internal and external auditors are also invited to discuss their work with the Committee as appropriate as well as having unfettered access to the Chair and Committee should they specific issues they wish to raise.
Our sub-groups:
We have four sub-groups, all with the responsibility of developing strands of our work. Each group reports back to our main Board.
These sub-groups are:
Culture and Visitor Economy sub-group
Our staff:
Responsibility for implementing the Board’s strategic vision sits with the Chief Executive. Supporting the Chief Executive is the Corporate Management Team, which consists of the Chief Executive, Director of Business Development, Director of Strategy and Programmes and the Director of Corporate Services.
The Corporate Management Team meet weekly to ensure they and our staff are up-to-date with important issues impacting on the organisation and drive delivery of the organisation's agreed objectives.
The next level of management - the Senior Management Team - meets weekly to discuss the operations of the organisation.
Our OxLEP staff salaries are benchmarked against similar organisations within the county and are reviewed by the Nominations and Personnel Committee.
All staff are paid at least the living wage.
For more information, contact Sadie Patamia Director of Corporate Services
Governance details
Please visit the below links to see further details relating to our governance processes and procedures, as well as our role with the Future Oxfordshire Partnership.