Dear Lauraine: This practice is quite common with grant-aided bodies in Britain. However, it is interesting that some years ago the (national) Arts Council started phasing out such ex officio Board memberships of its supported arts organisations, replacing such Board positions with a right for Arts Council staff or other advisors to attend and speak but not to vote (often referred to in UK government as "assessors"). I think that this was probably prompted by concern about the risk of a conflict of interest under recent evolution of English law relating to both company (corporation) boards and charity trustees. Basically anyone sitting on such a Board is now required by law to put the interests of that organisation first, middle and last during their period of service as a Board member, even though this may conflict with the interests and priorities of the public body or other organisation that they represent. There is a very interesting case currently going through the French criminal courts on a parallel point. Last week the former Director of the Theatre and Music Department in the French Ministry of Culture was fined 11,000 Euros (over US$10,000) for unlawful conflict of interest under French Administrative Law between one ministerial ex officio appointment (as chairman of the national body for artists' and performers' rights) and another (as ex officio Board member of an arts organisation). This is now going to appeal, but it was interesting to see that in protesting his innocence Dominique Wallon pointed out that under French cultural law he had been personally ex officio a full, voting, Board member of more than TWO HUNDRED!! arts organisations, i.e. all of those in receipt of substantial annual Ministry grants, and said that those complaining should instead have gone to the Constitutional Court challenging the legality of the laws that put him in the alleged conflict of interest position, rather than pursue him through the criminal courts. Patrick J. Boylan Professor of Heritage Policy & Management City University Department of Arts Policy and Management Frobisher Crescent Barbican London EC2Y 8HB ==================================== On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Lauraine Armstrong wrote: ++++++ [CLIP] ++++++ > I am curious to know if any other museums out there have a Board of > Directors where some of the voting members of the Board are appointed by > virtue of belonging to a particular group (in our case, Town Council, > Dept. of Education, bands (as in aboriginal)). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).