July remote exam examiners report

This task required candidates to write a memo to the operations director explaining how governance arrangements [Exhibit 1] and accepted corporate social responsibilities would help OpenSpace attain corporate citizen status, as detailed in Exhibit 6. Professional marks were available for demonstrating commercial acumen by explaining how aspects of governance related to adopting corporate citizenship at the company.
This question was also not well answered by most candidates. Many did try to use exhibit 6 as a structure, but often candidates merely re-wrote what was in the exhibit with little or no attempt to consider the relationship between board level governance and social responsibility expectations. Far too many answers focused incorrectly on the board structure and the number of NED’s and committees, without considering anything at all about how this would address/ impact corporate social responsibility. Many answers made no link between the two at all.

Candidates came up with a considerable variety of answers, with most using the ‘5 Stages of Delivering Corporate Citizenship or Social Responsibility’ and others suggesting how OpenSpace should be restructured in order to adhere to governance arrangements and social responsibilities required to become a corporate citizen. The explanations consistently included the need for the board to establish relevant audit committee and appoint more NEDs as a means of addressing compliance with regulations. However not enough was written about what the board should actually be doing.

I appreciate that you don’t have the paper as it is not released but I am wondering whether you can brainstorm the relationship between board level governance and social responsibility expectations. My questions are as follows:
1) What is corporate citizen status? I assume we are given a hint in the exhibit but I’m unsure
what should the board actually be doing?
My answer: The board should be making a statement in the annual report which outlines its corporate social responsibility commitments and how its day to day operations impact these. If supplier working practises in low cost economies are not checked to see if they are ethical, then this shows the board are not reviewing their corporate social responsibility impacts.
The board should ensure the information systems are reliable enough to capture non financial data such as the carbon emissions per unit and a statement on how it looks to reduce this amount should be made.
The addition of non exec directors is only relevant if these non exec directors are scutinising the boards attitude to risk in regards to environmental factors. The board may be sacrificing on health and safety procedures to cut costs and this shows a risk seeking attitude in regards to environmental outcomes.
The board should consider all different stakeholders and the impact on them. Shareholders may not wish to supply the company with capital if their capital is not being utilised to develop a sound system of internal control in respect to the environment. For example, reporting to the board from senior managers is important here so that environmental slippages or threats are reported at the board level.

What are the 5 stages of delivering corporate citizenship? I assume this was in the exhibit but I just want to check?