King V: a practical tool for university councils

GGi CEO Prof. Andrew Corbett-Nolan highlights the value of creative thinking by university councils in using the King V report to embed governance as a launchpad for renewed institutional vitality

I have had the privilege of supporting university councils and governing bodies across the UK for over a decade. Our work at GGi – evaluating boards, facilitating development programmes and advising on governance effectiveness – has given me a front-row view of the extraordinary dedication of lay governors who volunteer their time to steer complex, mission-driven institutions.

Yet in late 2025, the sector faces unprecedented pressures: frozen domestic tuition fees eroded by inflation, volatile international recruitment, rising pension and energy costs and a demographic dip in the home student population that will only begin to reverse later this decade. The Office for Students (OfS) has rightly highlighted financial sustainability as the dominant risk, with many providers forecasting deficits and shrinking liquidity buffers.

In this environment, robust governance is no longer simply good practice but the critical safeguard for institutional resilience and student interest. The OfS ongoing conditions of registration, particularly E2 (adequate and effective management and governance) and the public interest governance principles in E3, place the governing body at the heart of accountability. The Committee of University Chairs (CUC) Higher Education Code of Governance provides a valuable UK-specific framework, emphasising accountability, sustainability, equality of opportunity and academic freedom. Yet councils increasingly seek deeper, more forward-looking guidance to move beyond baseline compliance toward genuine strategic stewardship.

University councils will find both inspiration and very practical help by turning to the King V Code on Corporate Governance Principles 2025 from the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa (IoDSA). Far from being a tangential import, King V represents the culmination of three decades of rigorous, research-backed evolution that has influenced governance codes worldwide, including many elements that found their way into the original UK Corporate Governance Code. Its outcomes-oriented approach, grounded in integrated thinking across six capitals and infused with relational humanism, offers university councils a powerful lens to strengthen OfS compliance while simultaneously building longer-term resilience and public legitimacy.

The essence of King V: governance as ethical stewardship in complex systems

King V distils governance into 13 principles organised around leadership, strategy, risk, technology, assurance and stakeholder inclusivity. These drive four measurable governance outcomes:

• An ethical culture rooted in integrity and collective responsibility
• Sustainable performance and value creation within economic, social and environmental contexts
• Conformance and prudent control through robust yet proportionate systems
• Legitimacy – earning and retaining society’s trust beyond mere legal compliance

Central to King V is the idea of the governing body as a thoughtful, cohesive team exercising ethical and effective leadership. It promotes integrated thinking, consciously connecting financial decisions with impacts on human, intellectual, social, manufactured and natural capitals and proportionality via an ‘apply and explain’ disclosure regime that fits institutions of any scale.

For universities, this resonates powerfully. Research-intensive institutions managing billion-pound turnovers sit alongside specialist colleges and newer providers; all share the challenge of balancing immediate financial survival with long-term contributions to knowledge, skills and social mobility.

King V in dialogue with the OfS and CUC frameworks

The OfS conditions E2 and E3, together with the CUC Code, establish clear expectations: sound management and governance arrangements, financial sustainability, protection of academic freedom and adherence to public interest principles such as accountability, transparency and equality of opportunity. These are essential foundations, yet they are necessarily framed as minimum requirements and assessment criteria.

King V does not replace them; it enriches them. By starting with King V’s outcomes and principles, councils can infuse OfS-mandated structures with purpose, foresight and relational depth. The table below illustrates key alignments:

This is not a parallel system but a strategic overlay: King V supplies the ethical engine and systems-thinking architecture that animates OfS conditions and CUC expectations.

A deeper focus: financial sustainability and risk through a King V lens

Financial sustainability dominates current OfS concerns and quite rightly so when many providers face cashflow pressures and covenant tests. OfS condition E2 demands councils demonstrate ‘adequate and effective’ arrangements; reportable events guidance requires swift notification of material risks.

King V treats risk not as a technical exercise but as an expression of prudent, ethical stewardship. Principle 11 (risk governance) calls for holistic opportunity-and-threat scanning across all six capitals, with the governing body setting the institution’s risk appetite through thoughtful team dialogue. Recommended practices include heat-mapping social risks (e.g., widening-participation failures) alongside financial ones, and regular ‘pre-mortem’ discussions on emerging threats such as demographic shifts or policy changes. Incidentally, in our work GGi has found not thoughtfully setting and owning the risk appetite is a common deficit across public purpose organisations, with university councils often being particular offenders. Setting risk appetite is a board/council decision of how the institution intends to behave and not a technical exercise that can be outsourced to the risk manager. We often also see confusion from colleagues who should know better between risk appetite and risk tolerance and this fails to support at a practical level a culture of change and development.

Councils adopting King V can be confident they are walking in the footsteps of institutions that (in IoDSA studies and GGi’s own work) significantly improve their foresight identifying covenant pressures earlier, diversifying income streams more creatively, and protecting academic mission even under constraint. For example, a university council could use King V-inspired integrated dashboards to link pension liabilities with staff-wellbeing metrics, enabling proactive negotiation that preserved both solvency and culture.

Strengthening academic governance alongside council oversight

At GGi we are currently developing a series of resources on academic governance, the vital partnership between senate/academic board and council. King V’s emphasis on the governing body as a unified yet diverse team, drawing on intellectual and human capitals, offers fresh insight here. It encourages councils to view academic freedom not as a constraint but as core to legitimacy, fostering constructive challenge that respects senates’ role on academic matters while ensuring financial and reputational realities inform strategy.

Why university councils should engage with King V now

In an era of intense scrutiny – from OfS financial sustainability reports to public debate on value for money – councils need more than compliance. They need a framework that inspires confidence among students, staff, funders and society that the university is being steered wisely for the long term.

King V provides exactly that: an evidence-based, flexible blueprint that elevates OfS and CUC requirements into proactive, values-led governance. Early adopters in other public-purpose sectors tell us it sharpens strategic conversation, deepens board cohesion and crucially earns greater trust from regulators and stakeholders.

As we finalise our forthcoming guidance on the governance or higher education institutions, I recommend that in the meantime chairs, vice-chancellors and governance professionals explore the King V Foundational Concepts document alongside the CUC Code and OfS conditions. Conduct a quick principles mapping; consider a King V-informed effectiveness review; weave integrated thinking into your next strategy session.

Strong governance has always been the bedrock of great universities. In these testing times, King V offers councils the tools to ensure that bedrock becomes a launchpad for renewed institutional vitality.