The problem
Writing a governor's name against an action is not the same as getting the work back. Governors are volunteers with day jobs, another login is one more reason an action stays open, and "done" often means only that someone said so.
What I built
One plan for every agreed governance action, whether it came from an audit, an external review or a board meeting. Findings from audits arrive as suggestions and stay separate until someone chooses to add them. Each action gets written instructions, success criteria, a named governor and a deadline.
The governor receives a private link to a short form showing the task, the criteria and the due date. They record what they did, what they found and where the evidence is held, save a draft and come back with the same link. No account is needed.
Design decisions
A submitted response is not a completed action. The school reviews the work against the success criteria and either accepts it with a note or explains what is missing, and every submission and decision stays in the record. Email status is reported honestly: "sent" means the email service accepted the message, not that it arrived. Once an invitation goes out, its brief, recipient and deadline are fixed, and changing them means withdrawing the old link first.
What you can see
An overview of work to assign, in progress, overdue and ready for review; a board review page with an export for board papers; and a history that is kept when actions are archived.
The result
Recommendations stop being noted and forgotten. The board can see the task, the governor's findings and the decision to close it, which is exactly what the Quality Standard looks for in a board's improvement plan.