Summary
Governing bodies perform a critical role in school
leadership but, despite approximately 300,000 individuals serving
as school governors in England, vacancies continue to be an issue
for many governing bodies. The quality of governance in many schools
is also inadequate.
In September 2012, the Government introduced regulations
which provide additional flexibility for the governing bodies
of maintained schools to reconstitute themselves to be smaller,
with an emphasis on skills as opposed to prescribed constitutions.
Our inquiry concludes that these regulations provide the opportunity
for governing bodies to recruit individuals with appropriate skills
and address vacancies. However, many schools are not yet taking
full advantage of the regulations. There is a role for the Government
in spelling out more clearly what models of governance are now
possible within the new regulations, along with explaining how
these could be beneficial in different school contexts. Lessons
should be learned from the newer forms of governance appearing
in academies, and greater consideration given to how groups of
schools can be governed.
Governing bodies need to get better at identifying
the mixture of representation and skills they require in order
to be effective, and tailoring their recruitment accordingly.
To assist with the recruitment of skilled individuals from businesses,
we recommend that the Government review the current incentives
for and requirements on, businesses that release their staff for
governor duties, including for academies.
A strengthening of current approaches to intervention
in poor or failing governing bodies is required. We recommend
that the Government investigate the reasons why so many local
authorities and the Secretary of State have been reluctant to
use their powers of intervention more often where governance is
failing. We also recommend that the Government reviews processes
for removing poorly performing chairs from office and give governing
bodies the power to remove poorly performing governors.
Ofsted's clearer expectations of governing bodies
will encourage governors to identify weakness where it exists,
and help to raise standards across the board. The Government's
focus on peer-to-peer support for governing bodies is also welcome.
However, too many governors have not received suitable training
and we recommend that the Government require all schools to offer
training to new governors. As a rule, we do not advocate remuneration
for governors, but recommend that the Government give further
consideration to certain circumstances in which it may be appropriate
to pay governors— for example, when governors use their
skills to improve governance in other schools.
Clerks are vital to the success of governing bodies
and our inquiry indicates clearly that the role of clerk should
be a professional one. High quality support and information for
clerks should be a priority and the Government should work with
the NGA to rectify the loss of much valuable detail from the new
Governors' Handbook.
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