Governing groups

The topic of GGI's main monthly webinar for June will be Governing groups.

Increasingly, public-purpose bodies are being drawn into group arrangements. Some groups are merged as single entities, others are complex collaborations where individual entities remain but work together ‘as one’.

The governance implications are significant. Scale brings its own issues around board line of sight and achieving a lean control structure, and collaborations can become duplicative and opaque to understanding where accountability really lies.

GGI has been working with groups across many sectors and sees the potential for learning around good practice and also where things have gone terribly wrong. At this webinar, we will hear from thoughtful leaders who govern large, complex public-purpose bodies and share the lessons that can help us all improve how we make group models work.

Here to guide us through this discussion will be Mark Cubbon, Chief Executive of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Heather Jameson, Editor of The MJ, and Darren Kulesza-Smith, Director of Governance, University Schools Trust.

Please email events@good-governance.org.uk should you have any queries.

Mark Cubbon
Chief Executive, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

Mark has a long-standing career in the NHS having joined as a nurse in Greater Manchester in 1992. He became group chief executive of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust in April 2023. Before that, he was chief delivery officer for NHS England.

Mark has held a range of senior leadership roles in his career, including chief executive at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, regional chief operating officer for NHS Improvement in the Midlands and East of England, and several director roles in London NHS trusts, including Moorfields Eye Hospital, Whipps Cross and Barts Health.

Heather Jameson
Editor, The MJ

Heather Jameson is editor of The MJ, the leading weekly local government title for chief executives and senior managers, and of www.TheMJ.co.uk.

She is a regular speaker at both local government events and The MJ’s own events, including The MJ Future Forum, The MJ Future Forum North, The MJ Future Forum Midlands and The MJ Achievement Awards. Heather was a member of the Councillors’ Commission, chaired by Professor Colin Copus of De Montfort University, is a regular speaker on local government and is a passionate advocate for the sector.

Darren Kulesza-Smith
Director of governance, University Schools Trust

Darren began his career at Robert Clack School in 2005, teaching all three sciences and specialising in physics. He completed his training through the GTP programme and has worked throughout his teaching career in comprehensive and inclusive schools for 3-19 year olds located in areas of East London with high social deprivation.

In 2015, following an assistant headship at the Warren School, Darren joined St Paul’s Way Trust School in Tower Hamlets as director of learning before overseeing the development of the sixth form as deputy headteacher, helping to deliver record results as well as taking on wider responsibilities involving data, standards and compliance across the school.

In September 2018 Darren was appointed as deputy headteacher for the UST, with responsibility across the trust for standards and compliance, and in September 2019 was appointed to the UST Executive as director of data and compliance, then subsequently as director of education – operations.