Introduction

In this meeting, we will try to pin down who can stand for what role, and who can vote for whom. This will be dry and technical (sorry!) but I think and hope it's the last big push.

If possible, I would also like to talk about how to get to the April Board Meeting and get enough agreed at that meeting to enable Independence Day in July. I think we need to keep in touch with the Board as a whole over the next few months, and keep testing opinions. That way, we could narrow down some choices, so that the April Board meeting isn't too complex.

Finally, I have written down a few notes at the end about feedback on the proposals that came out in the Board meeting, and welcome your thoughts on this.

Onto the detail!

Eligibility - what is it?

There are different ways to consider eligibility, which we'll need to think about in the round. These are:

1. Characteristics of the person - eg their level in the NHS, or the cohort they are in, or where they are based
2. The length of time the person has served already

Electorates

Here, we will need to work out a balance between democracy and pragmatism! The College will be dependent on its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System to generate lists to send to the election provider to enable voting. So complex sub-divisions of the Membership to create mini-electorates may not be possible.

We should also think - is it ever likely that there will be so many candidates for Council that we should provide a power to create a Selection Committee to create a shortlist?

What I've set out for us to consider

I've tried to get the right compromise between giving you a genuine and manageable choice of workable options, and exhausting your patience by presenting too many slightly similar variants. Please just let me know, though, if you think of another twist on something I've suggested that could end up being the winner.

Assumptions I've made

1. That the basic building block of a term on Council is three years or four years (I think five would be too long, especially with the possibility of a second five year term).
2. That the minimum time on the Board of Trustees is three years - and that it's OK if a term on the Board of Trustees is three years even if Council is four years
3. That a Chair term, the VP term, the President term, and the Elected Council Member Trustee are all the same length, whether that is three years or four years. NB this has implications for the Resident Doctor terms - more detail follows.
4. That the President and the VP do not have to go up for re-election every year. And to complement this: 1) as already agreed, the VP does not automatically become President 2) as also already agreed, there will be a power for the Trustees to remove one of their number, so if the President is not performing, they could be removed at any time - you wouldn't have to wait until official election sesason.
5. That an Elected Council Member serves their first term and is eligible to stand for a second term, after which they must take a break of a year until before being voted in and starting another term on Council - unless any of the extensions I've set out below apply. We could also consider "4 years plus 2 years". This might address concerns about how long it takes to settle in and be productive, while maintaining turnover and freshness.
6. That in exceptional circumstances, which must be recorded at the time, the Board of Trustees may vote to extend an individual's term on the Board or on Council by a year. (eg to finish an important project, or because no-one can be persuaded to stand to replace them)

Resident Doctors

UPDATE - I think I had misunderstood how Residents are elected when I wrote the sentence below -

"At the moment, the Board term for a Resident Doctor is dependent on their time as Deputy Chair and then Chair of the IiT Sub-Committee. "

but I do still think we need to discuss how long a Resident Doctor's term is, so I think the next three sentences still stand.

"However, this means that it is very short, at just two years.

Does this still feel right, especially if Council is to make more decisions in future? The same argument about needing time to settle in and do a good job on Council seems to apply to Resident Doctors as much as other members of Council. "

And finally, it's important to remember ....

Council is both the starting point and the anchor.

Apart from the Lay Trustees (and possible co-opts), everyone who is on the Board of Trustees is only there because the Membership has already voted them onto Council.

This will be particularly relevant in the situation where someone has already served a chunk of time on Council or the Board stands for a role which would result in yet another extension of their Council term. Assuming that the FICM Board agrees that the President, VP and Chair roles all depend on a Council election, Council will have the power to say either "You're great, but it's time for someone else to have a go" or "You're great, and so we will extend your time on Council without you having to go back to the Membership for a new mandate".

One last point about moving from one role to another

What happens if you are a Trustee, and stand for a different Trustee role before the last year of your current role?

This is based on an assumption that all elections will be at roughly the same time of year. It's also based on a suggestion that (for simplicity) you can only apply for one Trustee role at a time.

Example

(I am basing this example on three-year terms for everyone)

You are a Chair (ie ex officio Trustee) and stand for President in your second year.

So if you are successful, your role as President would start at the beginning of what would have been your third year as Chair.

This would create a Chair vacancy - but one which would be unknown until after election season.

So how would you fill it?

I think there are two main options here.

1. Have a rule that if you stand for another Trustee role while you're in a Trustee role, your current Trustee role will end even if you're not successful (ie you have to resign from the current post to stand for the next one). This means that your current post can be advertised at the same time as the other roles, and everyone has the same chance to apply for all roles. So if you're a Chair in your second year, and you apply for President but don't get it, your Chair role also ends. You would still be on Council for that last year, but not a Chair any more and not on the Board of Trustees.
2. Have a different rule - that if you stand for another Trustee role and you get it, your current Trustee role is then filled with a quick, late election. This would mean that if you don't get the other Trustee role, you can stay in your current one, as it wouldn't have been up for grabs already.

This is one of those things that's not that important, but is very complex. I slightly favour Option 1, even though it seems brutal. This is only because with Option 2, you could get a chain of late elections if more than one role was coming to an end. There's no perfect option: it's really up to you and then ultimately, the FICM Board.

We don't have to decide on Wednesday, but it would be good to talk about it.

UPDATE

A suggestion has come in from the group, which I really like - that if you're a Chair you can only go for P or VP. I hadn't suggested that before, as I was worried that it would look like I thought that a Chair was more senior than an ECM Trustee. To be discussed!