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The compositions of Council and its committees are uniquely defined to ensure an equal and effective balance of skills, experience and knowledge relevant to each body’s Terms of Reference.

Ex Officio

Ex Officio posts are most often prescribed to those senior staff members who are wholly concerned with the central remit of a given committee, and whose omission from the composition would be disadvantageous to the conduct of the committee’s business.

Lay Members of Council

Lay Members of Council are entirely independent Trustees of the College, vetted by the Nominations and Governance Committee and formally appointed by Council from areas relevant to the educational, economic, social, cultural, charitable and community-focused interests pertinent to the work and administration of the College.

Up to fourteen Lay Members may sit on Council, while also taking posts across its various sub-committees, with the scrutiny and accountability of the College’s governance as a whole being their primary concern.

Co-Opted Independent Members

Co-Opted Independent Members from various backgrounds feature on a handful of sub-committees concerned with both academic and administrative areas and are appointed by Council based on the recommendations of the Nominations and Governance Committee, who in turn consider persons nominated by the Warden or the Chairs of those committees of which such members are a part.

Their specified expertise, in areas such as auditing or the scrutiny of academic programmes, for instance, is invaluable in providing an external, objective perspective on a committee’s work.

These co-opted committee members do not sit on Council.

Appointed Posts

Appointed Posts, held predominantly by academic staff but also by technical and professional services staff in some cases, typically appear on committees in sets of three or six, so that scrutiny and input on a committee’s business is received evenly from individuals or pairs of staff from Departments within each of the College’s three Schools, or professional services directly related to the business routinely under discussion.

Elected Posts

Elected Posts feature most prevalently on the College’s Academic Board.

The Board’s composition calls for one academic staff member from each pedagogical Department to attend meetings in addition to the Head of their Department.

Posts reserved for Members of the Students’ Union

These appear on the majority of committees and ensure student representatives are in a position to contribute to decision making and have a say within the College’s governance structure.