Reporting to the board and its committees is a source of serious risk

Both internal audit and risk functions have to be cognizant of one significant fact when it comes to providing their periodic reports to the board (or to an audit or risk committee of the board).

Members of the board are being overwhelmed by a ton of information prior to and then at each board or committee meeting.

Consider this piece from Board Intelligence, Directors say board packs are worsening. Here’s why and how to fix it.

Their key findings (I have changed the order) include:

• The average board pack is now 213-pages-long (up 22% in three years).
• Only 28% of directors and governance professionals get value from board papers.
• 66% must dig to find the key messages within their reports.

When you add the fact (and I have seen this many times) that board members are sent the 213 pages (on average) only a few days (sometimes less) before the meeting, you can see that there’s a crisis: the board is not getting the information they need, when they need it, in a readily consumable and actionable form.

This obviously has serious ramifications for the effectiveness of the board, and possibly the organization as a whole.

Add some additional…