Health and Wellbeing Board Maturity Matrix

How to use this resource

Each domain has a primary question. For example:

Does the board have a clear, shared understanding of what it exists to do, and does it lead as a strategic partnership rather than a committee?”

This helps guide inquiry into each domain. Each domain with an overlap, links to the related domain.

Each domain has three elements:

• Score 1 (not evident): describes a board at the floor of the scale. This board is meeting its statutory obligations but has not yet established itself as a strategic partnership with active purpose and impact in this domain. The description is intended to be honest and recognisable, not a verdict.
• Score 3 note (growing): a brief navigational signpost for boards in the middle of the scale. This is not a full descriptor but a pointer toward what meaningful movement beyond the floor looks like.
• Score 5 (embedded): describes a board operating at the frontier of good practice in this domain. The description is grounded in evidence from real boards and is intended to feel credible and achievable, not aspirational.

Boards self-locate on the 1 to 5 scale using the two anchor descriptors and the score 3 note as reference points. Scores 2 and 4 (limited and strengthening) sit between the anchors: score 2 describes a board that recognises the floor but has not yet moved decisively beyond it; score 4 describes a board that is largely operating at the ceiling but has not yet embedded the practice consistently across all its work.

The total score out of 35 is a useful headline for tracking progress over time. The pattern of scores across the seven domains is equally important: a board that scores well on partnership working but poorly on community engagement has a different development challenge from one that scores evenly across all domains.

Scoring scale

• 1. Not evident
• 2. Limited
• 3. Growing
• 4. Strengthening
• 5. Embedded

Each domain has anchor descriptors at score 1 (floor) and score 5 (ceiling), with a navigational note at score 3. Scores 2 and 4 sit between the anchors. The total score out of 35 is useful for tracking progress; the pattern of scores across domains is equally important.