Kate H: Imagine this. It's an ordinary third Tuesday of the month committee meeting. There's nothing about compliance on the agenda. Then the secretary says that the association, who hired the club rooms on Saturdays, has asked for a certificate of currency for the public liability insurance because their state association wants it on file.

Kate M: So the treasurer says, sure. I'll get that, and goes looking. Except the policy had lapsed four months ago, and nobody had seen a renewal notice, and nobody had checked.

Kate H: And then someone remembers that Dave, who's been coaching the 12 since March, was due for a new working with children check when his old one expired back in April. Poor Dave.

Kate M: So here are two essential obligations sitting unmet for months, and the club only realized because someone outside the club happened to ask.

Kate H: Compliance doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to be tracked so you're not relying on someone else to notice before you do. Welcome to The Committee Room.

Welcome back to The Committee Room. I'm Kate Hartwig.

Kate M: And I'm Kate McPhee. We help small, time poor, volunteer led committees run better meetings, make better decisions, and build stronger structures and systems with less stress and less mess.

Kate H: This is the next episode in our documents done right series, and compliance is where it all comes together. The constitution tells you what to do. The companion documents, your charter codes, bylaws, and policies, they tell you how to do it. And your compliance documents, make sure you get it done.

Kate M: Now, Kate, I know that the word compliance makes people's eyes glaze over, and half of our listeners have already stopped listening to this and started thinking about what they're gonna have for dinner. But listeners, please bear with us because this episode is actually a real stress reliever. We wanna make sure that your organization knows how to stay on the right side of the law without making compliance anyone's full time job. So quick note before we start. This podcast is for general information on best practice governance for small to medium associations. It is not legal advice.

So let's get started. So let's start with what compliance means, because the word suggests something that can sound quite intimidating and bureaucratic, and it really isn't. Compliance is simply making sure that everything your organization is required to do gets done. That's the whole definition.

Nothing more mysterious than that. It's doing the things that your organization is required to do, and required is the important word here.

Kate H: And when compliance isn't managed well, that's when you get the nasty surprises. Discovering the public officer's details haven't been updated in three years, finding out that your fire safety inspections should have been done eighteen months ago but weren't, or like our opening scenario, realizing the insurance and the screening checks quietly expired months ago and nobody was watching. Now none of those are dramatic failures. They're just things nobody wrote down and nobody was tracking.

Kate M: Mind you, Kate, they could have been dramatic failures if something had gone very wrong.

Kate H: And they could have been extremely damaging both in financial and reputational terms to everyone on the committee.

Kate M: And that's the whole point of today's episode. The goal was never a mountain of paperwork. You know? We've all got enough of that. The point of today's episode is about making sure that people know what needs to happen and building a simple system so that it does happen without anyone having to hold all of this information in their head.

So there are two tools that do that, a compliance register and your committee calendar.

Kate H: Now the register is your what. The committee calendar is your when. Get those two things right, and the anxious low level feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach of have we forgotten something? Mostly disappears.

Kate M: Magic. So the compliance register is your master list or your mistress list or your top dog list or whatever you wanna call it, but it's the list of everything that your organization is legally or contractually required, again, in my special voice, required to do. And the way to build your compliance register is to think about two things, what you are and what you do, what your organization is, and what your organization does.

Kate H: Okay. So what you are. You are an incorporated association, which means the association's incorporations act applies to you regardless of what your organisation does day to day. Now that gives you your baseline obligations, maintaining a registered public officer and notifying any change, holding an AGM within the required time frame, lodging your annual return and financial statements, and if your gross receipts cross the prescribed association threshold, a mandatory independent audit. We went through that threshold properly back in episode 16 when we covered what goes wrong at a badly run AGM.

Kate M: And if your organization is registered as a charity, then you'll have obligations to the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission, the ACNC. So things like annual information statements and the different types of financial reporting, and, of course, governance standards apply to every registered charity. But if you're not a registered charity, then that particular layer doesn't apply to you, so you can just note that and move along.

Kate H: Then there's what you do, what your organization does. And this is where the register gets specific to you rather than generic to every incorporated association or club in the state. Now Kate's book has a proper table of these. Incorporation, taxation, privacy, equal opportunity, premises, honorariums, gifts and donations, liquor, gaming, lottery screening checks, food safety, employment, and so on. Deep breath. Every one of those is a category, not a single obligation, and most organizations will touch several of them without realizing it.

Kate M: So what you do, dear listener, is you walk through your own activities, checking them off against that list. Do you do fundraising? Then the fundraising legislation applies. Do you work with children or vulnerable people? Then screening checks are required and working with children checks in some states. Now like Dave from our opening scenario, those checks need to be kept current and can't just quietly expire without anyone noticing. Do you run events or hire out a space like the club rooms in the same scenario? Then you need public liability insurance that's current, not a policy you assume auto renewed until somebody outside the club asked to see it.

Kate H: Do you have paid staff, even just one? Work health and safety obligations kick in, and they're not optional because your organization is small and well meaning.

Kate M: So if you have club rooms or you own your own premises, then you need to think about council regulations and building compliance and liquor licenses and all of those things. They all bring compliance obligations that you must pay attention to. If you post photos of your members, then there are privacy obligations. And if there are children in those photos, then there's an extra layer of responsibility on top of that general privacy one. What's really important for people to understand, for committee members to understand, is that if you have an obligation for something, you really don't have a choice.

These are the things that you must do. The committee is the body that is responsible for making sure that your compliance obligations are put into practice. So whether it's renewing something or reviewing something or checking that something is done in a way that complies with the law, they're the things that the committee is responsible for. It's not just a document. It's about an attitude, a culture that says we need to do these things properly so that we are always meeting our internal and our external requirements.

Kate H: And, of course, your external and internal obligations will often need you to develop a policy that you can update as part of your compliance work, encapsulating those obligations in a form that can be accessed by everyone in your organization and becomes the way we do things around here. I think it's always a good thing to note too, Kate, that the size of the organization doesn't matter. If you are small and well meaning, it doesn't mean that you are exempt from having to comply with all of these things. So the best place to get reliable advice on which of these apply to your organization is your relevant peak or industry body, not a guess around the committee table, and definitely not who's fastest at googling it on their phone under the table while the meeting waits. Now in South Australia, that might be Clubs SA if you're a licensed or unlicensed club, your national or peak body for industry or trade associations, the South Australian Council of Social Service, if you're a social welfare or community organization, Community Centers SA, or the Multicultural Communities Council of SA, if that's your sector. Every state has equivalents, so find yours.

Kate M: Now, Kate, it's likely that just about every activity your organization undertakes will have some kind of compliance requirements associated with it. That's why you need a register in writing rather than trying to keep all of this stuff inside somebody's head. You know, even the most fabulous super secretary cannot hold all of this information about compliance and dates in their head. And, Kate, as we know, this stuff should not rest with one person anyway. These are responsibilities that belong to the whole committee.

Kate H: Yeah. Absolutely, Kate. For each item in the register, capture four things. What's the obligation? What do we need to do to meet it? What evidence shows that we've done it? And how often does it need to be reviewed or renewed? So four columns, one register, and suddenly a fairly frightening list becomes a manageable checklist. So once you know what you need to comply with, you need to know when, and that's where the committee calendar comes in.

It's exactly what it sounds like. A calendar that shows when each compliance task falls due across the year, builds straight off the register you've just created.

Kate M: So for example, your insurance renewal is due at the end of March. Your constitution review is due every three years, so put that in in May every three years. Things like the working with children's check and other things, they have expiry dates that are set by someone else, so you put those those renewal dates in. The first time that you start listing all of those things, it does make a pretty scary looking list. But don't do what some committees do. Don't get scared and run away. Keep on going because this is gonna turn out to be one of your most important tools, and you are gonna be very, very happy that you've put in the effort to get that tool right and to keep it sharp and shiny for you.

Kate H: Which is exactly why you spread the tasks across the year instead of trying to tackle them all at once. So, you know, you put your constitution review in February, your risk register review in May, your insurance renewal in August. I mean, remember, some of your external things are going to have compliance dates that are not set by you, But your internal policies and requirements, you can put them whenever you want as long as they're on a reasonable schedule. So little and often beats everything at once in a blind panic every single time.

Kate M: Now one more thing for us to think about here, Kate. On paper or online?

Kate H: Oh, online, Kate. And it's not even a close decision. A shared spreadsheet, a calendar with reminders, or a proper compliance tool, if you can stretch to that, any of them can nudge the right person automatically when something's coming due and be seen by more than one person. A calendar pinned to the notice board only helps whoever's standing in front of it.

Kate M: And even worse, Kate, if that calendar is locked in a dusty cupboard in an office that only one person goes into, it is completely bloody useless. So I agree with you. The way to do these things now is to have a shared online tool. One more call. Do you have a compliance calendar or a committee calendar that includes all of these things.

Kate H: The simple answer is to build your compliance date straight into the committee calendar that you're probably already running for meetings and events, and color code them so they don't get lost amongst everything else on there. One calendar color coded beats two calendars quietly drifting out of sync with each other.

Kate M: Absolutely. Definitely my preference. And, Kate, if you could see my calendar, you would know. I I think I've got about 12 different colors.

I mean, this is what people do now, don't they? So your committee is the same. It needs the same kind of color coordinated calendar to make sure that everything is done on time.

Kate H: Your calendar, Kate, is a work of art and a thing of beauty.

Kate M: So here's the thing that stops all of this compliance stuff becoming any one volunteer's full time job. You make the committee calendar a standing item on every meeting agenda. Ten, fifteen minutes to work through whatever's due that month. Really, that's all it takes because you're never dealing with more than a month's worth of tasks at a time.

Kate H: The other thing you should think of is that a governance subcommittee is brilliant for carrying this. A small group, two, three, four people who own the register and the calendar, keep them current between meetings, and draft up and bring the relevant items to the full committee when something needs a decision. If you don't have one, your secretary and treasurer can, between them, manage it pretty well, but it's always good to have a little bit of extra help. The only requirement is that someone named owns it. The same principle as everything we've said about delegations. Ambiguity about who's responsible is how things get missed.

Kate M: That's definitely my preference, Kate, is to have have your governance subcommittee carrying both the register and the calendar because, you know, they are the perfect subcommittee to make sure that the things that need to be done are getting done. And they should have enough authority that they can go and knock on someone's door and say, hey. Have you confirmed that all of the working with children checks have been done for this six month period? And they will stand at the door until they get an answer.

Kate H: Put a foot in the door if they need to.

Kate M: Put a foot in the door. Absolutely. Because it's no good just having having this register and having the calendar if somebody isn't ensuring that the things have actually been done. And both of these documents, you should be reviewing each year because compliance requirement change as your organization grows or takes on new activities and as legislation changes around you.

So what was a complete register last year might have a hole in it this year because you've started a new event or you've got a new grant. Yay. Yay. But that comes with its own reporting conditions, or you might have taken on your first staff member. So that also comes with compliance requirements. Build the annual review of both documents into the calendar itself so it's not something you have to remember to remember. And that's the whole system, start to finish. Once it's set up, maintaining it takes almost no time at all, ten, fifteen minutes a meeting to tick off what's done and flag what's coming.

Kate H: Instead of a constant low grade anxiety about what you might be forgetting. You look at the calendar and know exactly where you stand. That's the stress relief we promised at the start.

Kate M: So let's bring all of this together. Compliance is simply making sure that what must be done gets done. So build your compliance register, your master list of obligations based on what you are and what you do, and make sure that you've checked it with your peak body. Don't just guess at it. Put the items from your compliance register into your committee calendar and spread the dates across the year.

Build the committee calendar into your meeting agenda as a standing item, and review both the compliance register and the committee calendar every year. And make sure you've got names against who's responsible for what.

Kate H: Compliance doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to be done a little often. That's the way to do it.

Kate M: So, listeners, if you don't already have a compliance register, start this week. Start with your constitution. That's gonna give you some of your your most important key dates and and key activities, and then work through your other documents, work through your event calendar, work through your contractual obligations, and start making that list. It doesn't have to be complete on day one. A rough first version is much better than nothing, and then you build on it from there.

What's that thing I say, Kate? Incremental improvement is preferable to postponed perfection.

Kate H: Another one of your fabulous sayings, Kate. We've put a compliance register template and a committee calendar template from the committee companion in the show notes. Download them. They'll get you started faster than a blank page will.

Kate M: So, listeners, if working through reviewing your constitution or developing your companion documents and now developing a compliance register has prompted you to think that a proper governance review is due for your organization, contact us at Fresh All Sorts. The details are in the show notes.

Kate H: And if you've got a governance question you'd like us to tackle on the show, the contact form is @thecommitteeroom.com.au. Your question might end up being the next one we answer on air.

Kate M: If today's episode has been useful, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share the link to The Committee Room with someone else on your committee or on another committee. The show notes and the freebie download that Kate mentioned are @thecommitteeroom.com.au.

Kate H: So next time, we have a special treat for our listeners. We're actually getting somebody else to come into the studio and talk to you about something which is incredibly important for all associations and probably not thought about enough, and that is your obligations with regard to natural justice and procedural fairness. And maybe some of those tricky little legal issues that have been plaguing you.

Kate M: Kate, I just have to say, I find the terms natural justice and procedural fairness, you know, like, they're not that sexy, are they? Let's be frank about this. They're not sexy. They're not the sort of things that people really choose to think about. But what I do know is just how very important it is that organizations have their head around the principles of it. So I'm really looking forward to having our guest.

Until then, I'm Kate McPhee, Kate two.

Kate H: And I'm Kate Hartwig, Kate one.

Kate M: And this has been The Committee Room. Remember,

Kate H: you don't need good luck if you've got good governance.