Convene Housing GRC Network Webinar
As regulations get more stringent in the housing sector, it’s important for housing associations to change their routines so they can keep up with new developments and growing demands. Today, we hosted our Path to Regulation Readiness webinar with Arturo Dell and Gemma Walford.
Our hosts used Convene to delve into methods that keep board information tidy, traceable, and compliant with some help from AI along the way.
The Regulatory Landscape
Before delving into our topic, Arturo highlighted this quote from the new Sector Risk Profile that was published by the Regulator of Social Housing earlier this month:
Boards and councillors set the culture, and they must demonstrate from the top the central importance of good governance in managing risks and strategic decision making – underpinned by rigorous data and risk management processes.
The Regulator of Social Housing underlines the responsibility and importance of having good governance. Today’s webinar covered the theoretical and practical sides of making sure boards are on the right track.
Gemma noted these 4 features for the optimal flow of data:
- Speed
- Security
- Efficiency
- Searchability
Ensuring that you board has access to these features helps them make the right decisions at the right time.
Confident governance: A guide for Convene
Creating a meeting plan for the year is a daunting task for a lot of people. How can you make sure that your plan is fit for and understood by the board? Sending emails back and forth can be tedious and inefficient. Convene can help.
The Review Room
The review Room is the place for drafting meetings, getting feedback and making them official. With this, you can get input from the right teams to make sure everything is correct and readable. Unlike emails, there’s a designated option for setting due dates to make sure your board is up to date and always making progress.
These plans can be used effectively for years or changed whenever it’s necessary. When they’re confirmed, you can paste them into the Meeting section.
Meetings
In the Meeting section, you can track how much time is spent on certain topics to make sure that you’re treating issues with the required focus. You can also compare a board meeting to an audit and risk meeting to guarantee that all teams are aligned.
Conversation
Once board packs are released, they get opened at different times which means that questions are asked and discovered as the days pass. Keeping track of and answering those questions can be an overwhelming task. Our conversation tool is a dedicated space for the Chair to resolve questions in advance so that the meetings stick to the agenda.
It’s also useful for answered questions to be compiled so that board members can learn from those with more experience in a particular field.
AI minutes
AI is here to stay and with our AI Minutes tool, you can quickly make sense of board packs. We understand the importance of keeping your information safe which is why we developed a tool to ensure that board members have the option to use Convene’s secure AI instead of uploading any sensitive information into external vendors.
The transcript can then be used to get insights, the next steps and action items which can be assigned or reassigned. But remember, this is only a tool to assist with speed. Your oversight is still essential.
Summary: A guide for Convene
Step 1: Draft, get feedback and confirm the agenda.
Step 2: Check that meetings and agenda items support decision flows across boards and committees.
Step 3: Allow the Chair to manage threads before the meeting.
Step 4: Produce timely minutes with the assistance of AI.
Step 5: Gain insight from the transcripts and minutes to create the next steps and actions for approval.
The importance of board evaluations
Board management and board evaluation go hand in hand. With Assure, you have complete governance assurance in one platform:
- Governance reviews of boards and committees
- Skills assessments and matrix
- 360 peer reviews
- Actions tracker for development plans
Advantages of Convene Assure
With the Board Governance Review, you can have:
- Clear evidence of your governance position
- Insight into what’s working well and where to focus improvement effort
- Prioritised actions to address development areas
This is all evidence that’s ready for regulators and board papers.
Linking back to the latest Sector Risk Profile, ‘rigorous data and risk management processes’ are so important for good governance. Our Housing Specific Skills Assessment guarantees that your board is always regulation ready.
Convene GRC Network
The Convene GRC Network is a place for:
- Knowledge exchange: Share what you know and learn from experts for best practice.
- Questions: Ask questions in our trustworthy environment under the Chatham House Rule.
- Unique perspectives: A focused space where board members and officers can gather with mutual understanding.
- Community: Meet regularly via online webinars and in between meetings through LinkedIn.
Future Events
Thank you to everyone who attended this webinar. If you missed it, don’t worry! Join our upcoming webinar and secure your spot now.
Improving Board Evaluation: Friday 12th December 2025 | 10:00 – 11:00 GMT
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