Bench Bulletin - Issue 12 - Kenya Law Reports

KENYA LAW REPORTS
BENCH BULLETIN
NCLR HOLDS FIRST STRATEGIC PLANNING
RETREAT
By Racheal Mwaura, Programme Officer
DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS
regulations and guidelines governing the affairs of state
corporations and the formulation of a working draft/first
version of the proposed strategic plan.
One of the sessions during the Council Straff’s Strategic
Planning Retreat
Racheal Mwaura
Programme Officer
For an organization, the lack of a vision, mission,
statement of values and a strategic plan results in a
reactionary, uncoordinated and fire-fighting approach
to strategic issues and frustrates the expectations of the
organization’s stakeholders. Organizational strategic
planning is the means by which an organization
articulates its mandate and charts out the manner in
which it proposes to hone its resources towards the most
effective way of fulfilling that mandate.
In order for it to be effective, a strategic plan needs to
have the input, understanding and endorsement of all the
organization’s employees, who are in fact an important
constituency among an organization’s stakeholders.
For a long time, the National Council for Law Reporting’s
strategic plan has been subsumed under the larger
Strategic Plan for the Judiciary, its parent ministry.
However, best practices in organizational operations
require that an organization, even a semi-autonomous
state agency such as the Council, should have its own
strategic plan embodying its vision, mission, values,
functions and setting out a plan of activities for fulfilling
those functions.
In this regard and in order to align the National Council
for Law Reporting with Vision 2030 and the Judiciary
Strategic Plan 2009-2012, the Council’s staff retreated
to the leafy and tranquil surroundings of Nyeri town
between June 17-19 2010, to focus their minds on
the formulation of the Council’s Strategic Plan for the
period 2009-2012. The retreat was the culmination of a
series activities undertaken by the Council in late 2009
which included stakeholder consultation, departmental
briefings, a review of laws,
During the retreat, the Council’s staff had the benefit
of the technical advice of Mrs. Florence Mutua from
the Directorate of Personnel Management (DPM) and
Mr. Kennedy Nyambati from the Inspectorate of State
Corporations who provided invaluable input in the areas
of personnel management and corporate governance
respectively. The retreat was presided over by Mr. Michael
M. Murungi, the Ag. Editor/CEO of the Council. It was
moderated by Ms. Esther Nyaiyaki, the Ag. Snr. Assistant
Editor while Ms. J. Kambuni, Ms. Njeri Kamau and Mr.
Andrew Kiarie served as the rapporteurs.
The working draft of the proposed strategic plan was
subjected to the consideration of a full-plenary of the
Council’s staff who made key contributions on the vision,
mission, values, mandate, functions and strategic activities
for Council. The retreat’s deliberations were informed by
Vision 2030, the Judiciary’s Strategic Plan and a number
of related documents, including the strategic plans of
stakeholder institutions, the Constitution of Kenya and
the laws and regulations governing the affairs of state
corporations.
Beyond presenting their views on the overall draft
strategic plan for the Council, the staff cascaded
the plan down to the departmental level with every
department drawing from the draft organizational plan
to formulate and present its own mission, functions,
organogram, strategies and a plan of activities complete
with budget and performance matrices. The plenary
and departmental sessions gave ample opportunity for
individual input ensuring that all departmental staff had a
clear understanding of their role in the attainment of not
only the Council’s mission but also the Judiciary’s vision
as well as Vision 2030.
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Issue 12: April-June 2010