Awards Governance Charter

01Purpose and principles

• Recognition is earned, never bought.
• The process is consistent, evidence-based and applied to everyone the same way.
• Judging is independent of the commercial activity that funds the awards.
• Decisions are recorded, so they can be reviewed.

02The Awards Steering Group

The Steering Group provides oversight — not scores. It sets and maintains the Standard, oversees that the process is followed, manages conflicts and complaints, and can intervene on governance grounds.

The Steering Group does not score entries and does not pick winners.

03Steering Group — Terms of Reference

• Composition — a majority of members are independent of the commercial operation of the awards.
• Appointment — members are appointed against these terms and each accepts the Judge Code of Conduct and the Conflict of Interest Policy.
• Restrictions on membership — no one may oversee a decision in which they hold a material conflict; commercial and sales team members, sponsors, partners and entrants may not oversee any category or decision in which they are involved.
• Responsibilities — maintain the Standard; approve criteria and weightings before entries open; oversee conflict management; hear complaints; authorise and document any exceptional intervention.
• Powers it does not have — it cannot alter a score, and cannot change a result to favour any party.
• Decisions — taken by a defined majority, with conflicted members recusing themselves.

04Commercial separation

• The people who sell sponsorship, tables and advertising are separated from those who judge and calculate results.
• Commercial teams have no ability to view or alter scores or results before publication.
• Sponsoring or partnering a category never includes any influence over that category’s outcome.

05Intervention

The process runs by its rules. Intervention is exceptional and is permitted only to protect integrity — for example, proven fraud, a clear rule breach, or a data error.

• Any intervention must be authorised by the Steering Group.
• It must be documented with reasons and recorded in the audit trail.
• It never means quietly changing a winner.

06Complaints

Anyone can raise a concern about the process. Complaints are acknowledged, reviewed by people independent of the concern, and answered.

Where a complaint is upheld, outcomes can include recusal, exclusion of an affected score, or withdrawal of an award. Concerns can be raised via our contact page.

07Records, audit and review

• Declarations, scores, locks, calculations, interventions and complaints are recorded.
• Records are kept so that any result can be reconstructed and reviewed.
• This Charter and the Awards Standard™ are reviewed at least annually and versioned.