4B. Managing your organisation - policy
An area of managing an organisation that can save a lot of time and heartache is to have policies and procedures. By having policies and procedures in place an organisation can make informed decisions e.g. if an organisation has members and/or lets its premises to other organisations it should have a policy on how to deal with dissatisfaction and complaints and a code of conduct as to how it expects people to behave on its premises. Then, if someone complains to the Management Committee about the way they have been treated, the Committee can refer to its policy and act accordingly. If there is no policy it will be making decisions on the back foot and if challenged may find it hard to justify. Whereas if it has a policy and people know what it is, they will know they have been judged fairly.
Community Matters has in this guide prepared a number of documents on key areas where a committee may wish to have policies e.g. Data Protection as well as some specimen policies such as Disputes and Complaints Policy. Today many grant giving bodies, local authorities and trusts all ask for policy documents when organisations apply for funding. Examples of policies that may be asked for include: Equal Opportunities, Data Protection, Health and Safety and Child Protection. Having a policy or statement of intent however, is not enough. If an organisation is to follow good practice methods it needs to put the policy into practice and involve all its members and user groups. Putting policies into practice can prove quite challenging when they have not existed before, but it is well worth the effort in the end.
Writing a policy may seem a little daunting at first. However, not all policies have to be long documents running for pages and pages. Some, such as a reserves policy, need only be a paragraph or two.
Of course, it is perfectly possible to make use of specimen documents (we have included some in this section and throughout other areas of our On Line Guidance and Advice such as Health & Safety and Children and Young People) but they need to be used with caution. They are there as examples when writing a policy and should not be copied slavishly - after all it is the organisation’s policy and so needs to be made relevant to it. However, they are useful guides and once a policy has been written, it can be used as a basis for writing all the others. Policies need to be reviewed regularly to ensure they are both still relevant (i.e. are keeping pace with any changes in legislation) and are still fit for purpose. To this end it is always a good idea to date the document when it is written and when it has last been reviewed.
For more information
To find out more about key policies relevant to managing your organisation select the links below to download our set of publications.
If you would like to talk to one our advisers, call our advice service on 0845 847 4253 from 09.30 to 13.00 on Mondays and Thursdays. Alternatively, you can email us your question and we will get back to you.
Download Online Guidance and Advice
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Specimen Documents