From childcare and aged care to disability and community services, human services organisations touch lives at every stage. Strong governance is critical to protecting people in their care and ensuring safe, high quality services.
The 2021 Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety exposed serious governance failures, including inadequate complaints processes, poor clinical oversight and ineffective leadership despite multiple warning signs.
Since then, expectations of boards and directors have strengthened. The Aged Care Act 2024, which commenced in November 2025, requires directors to prioritise the interests of care recipients over shareholder returns. Directors can also face civil penalties and potential banning orders.
These changes highlight a broader shift across human services: care governance is a board responsibility, not something that can simply be delegated to management.
Care literacy matters
Boards need to understand how care is delivered, what quality looks like and where harm can occur.
Rosina Hislop FAICD, chair of ECH, says: “Care literacy is as fundamental as financial literacy in the boardroom.”
This means asking more than whether an organisation is compliant. Boards should also ask whether the people they serve are safe, supported and thriving.
Culture and lived experience
Strong governance also depends on creating a culture where staff feel safe to speak up and report concerns.
Board composition matters too. The Disability Trust provides an example of embedding lived experience into governance, appointing a person with intellectual disability to its board and developing an inclusive governance policy co-designed by people with lived and living experience.
Preparing for risk
Boards also need to look beyond compliance and prepare for emerging risks and unexpected events. Scenario planning, strong clinical expertise and tested crisis plans can help organisations respond effectively when circumstances change.
Stronger boards, safer care
Across the human services sector, the message is clear: good care governance is about more than compliance.
Boards need the right skills and lived experience, strong oversight of care and clinical governance, a culture of speaking up and a focus on preventing harm.
Ultimately, stronger governance means keeping the safety, dignity and wellbeing of the people organisations serve at the centre of every board decision. Boards also need to look beyond compliance and prepare for emerging risks and unexpected events. Scenario planning, strong clinical expertise and tested crisis plans can help organisations respond effectively when circumstances change.