Glasgow School of Art is ruled by a board of 24 governors - 16 of which are said to be independent.
The governors are responsible for ensuring the effective management of the school and to play a key role in the development, approval and review of its mission and strategic vision.
It is the principal financial and business authority of the school and is expected to safeguard its reputation and values.
It is supposed to oversee and monitor the development and implementation of the school's strategic plan.
When appointing independent governors last year, the GSA told candidates that the board should be "diverse and inclusive" and that governors should "share our commitment to the GSA's future as one of the UK's leading international art schools in one of Europe's leading cultural creative cities.
There are currently 16 independent governors made up of ten men and six women. The chairman and convenor of the nominations committee is Ann Priest.
READ MORE: Lachlan Goudie: ScotGov must intervene over School of Art fails
Glasgow School of Art: We 'appreciate' concern over future of Mack
Glasgow School of Art: students and politicians recall the 2014 fire
'A scandal': 19 months of 'inertia' over the rebuild of a Scottish national treasure
Six-year issue over GSA fire insurance claim fuels Mack rebuild 'inertia'
Ms Priest replaced Muriel Gray who stood down as chair of Glasgow School of Art in 2021, three years after a second fire engulfed the Mack.
Also on the board is a secretary and registrar, two representing the students' association governors, two elected from staff, two from trade unions and one ex-officio governor, Professor Penny Macbeth, the GSA director.
Prof Macbeth was Dean of Manchester School of Art before she took the position of director in 2020 succeeding Prof Irene McAra-McWilliam who was appointed on an interim basis in November 2018. On her appointment, she acknowledged the difficulties and complexities of the role but stressed GSA continued to have an "enviable global reputation".
As a Scottish Higher Education Institution, the school must comply with the Scottish Code of Good Higher Education Governance, which states: “The governing body must take responsibility for ensuring the effective management of the institution, planning the institution’s strategic direction and future development and advancing its mission.
"The governing body has ultimate responsibility for all the affairs of the institution and must ensure that there are appropriate arrangements for financial management. It must satisfy itself that the institution is compliant with all relevant legal and regulatory obligations and operates with high levels of social responsibility."
The governance framework comes from various acts of Parliament, statutes, ordinances and resolutions from which the school says it derives the power and authority to carry out its activities.
The governance structure consists of the board of governors and the academic council, with the management structure headed by the director, Penny Macbeth.
She is the chief accountable officer of the GSA responsible for providing the governors with advice on the strategic direction of the school and its management.
All governors are meant to play an active part in the GSA, regularly meeting with students and staff and ensuring that it maintains strong governance in support of its ambitions.
The GSA believes that governors are expected to retain a relationship with stakeholders from students, to staff, communities, business partners and the cultural sector across Scotland.
The governors appoint the academic council which advises the director over the overall planning, co-ordination, development and supervision of the academic work of the GSA.
The GSA say that the majority of its board or governors are independent members and provide "constructive and independent advice and guidance, informed by expertise, across a range of creative and professional backgrounds".
The board has committees covering audit and risk, business and estates, health and safety, human resources, museum and archives, nominations and remuneration.
Five board meetings are held each year, normally in October, November, December, March and June of each years.
Independent governors are normally appointed for a period of three years.
They may have their appointments extended, subject to satisfactory performance and on the recommendation of the nominations committee, on expiry of their term of office. Independent governors can serve a maximum of three terms.
Three new additions to the board were made in January.
Professor Stephen Hodder is an award winning architect with 30 years’ experience in practice, Professor Adrienne Scullion is head of arts and social sciences at the Open University and a member of the governing body of Edinburgh Napier University, and Professor Andrea Siodmok holds a Masters in Public Policy from the London School of Economics and is currently dean in the school of design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel