Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Governing Body of the Totnes Federation of Village Schools (the “Federation”).

1. Summary

The main point of this submission is to show the key challenges that Governing Bodies face under the current system together with the expectations and responsibilities they hold.

2. A Brief Introduction to our Federation

Our Federation is formed of six Devon village schools with a single governing body. Each school retains its separate status, Headteacher, ethos and identity and, currently, its own budget although we are aiming for a single budget. The purpose of federating was to provide the best experience possible for all our pupils; to ensure that each village retains its own unique, thriving school; and to try and retain as much of the character as possible of our local communities served by the schools. We are moving forward in a collaborative and mutually supportive way, sharing resources at a time when our funding is effectively being cut (particularly given the new funding formula). This in itself creates significant challenges for the Governing Body.

We are quite a complicated Federation and consist of:

Two Community Schools (Broadhempston and Stoke Gabriel) which are wholly maintained by the Local Authority

Two Voluntary Aided Schools (Harbetonford and Landscove) where the voluntary body owns the school buildings and receives assistance from central government towards the cost of improvement or enlargement and external repairs. They control their own admissions arrangements. Staff are employed by the Governors but paid by the Local Authority.

Two Voluntary Controlled Schools (Diptford and Berry Pomeroy) where the voluntary body own the schools however the premises, grounds and running costs are wholly provided by the Local Authority.

Response to the Points under Consideration

3.1 The purpose, roles and responsibilities of school governing bodies, within the wider context of school governance and leadership

We understand that Headteachers have responsibility for the day-to-day management of each School, but Governors are responsible for the overall management of each School and are accountable for each School’s success. The relationship between the Governing Body and the Headteacher is therefore a very close one, based on partnership. The best way to support each School is to bring constructive challenge so that decisions are fully thought through and backed up with sound reasoning and judgment.

We consider that a Governor’s role includes the following areas:

Strategic—for example setting a policy on the curriculum; setting budgets and approving each School’s development plans; and responding to inspection plans and publishing action plans.

Monitoring—making sure that each School keeps to the policies, budgets and plans and keeps up to date with the quality and educational standards in the School.

Evaluating—measuring the impact of what we are doing.

Executive—taking direct responsibility for the recruitment of senior staff and some disciplinary matters.

Accountability—the Governing Body is accountable to a number of key stakeholders including parents, the LEA, OFSTED and the wider community.

Supporting—supporting and advising the Headteacher and providing practical help and skills.

In addition we understand that our statutory duties as Governors includes: implementation of the National Curriculum; Public Examinations; SEN; Equal Opportunities; Collective Worship; Religious Education; The School Day and Year; Use of School Premises Outside of School Hours; Charging for School Activities; Premises; Finance; Staffing; Reports to the Local Authority; Public Information; Inspections of Schools; The Governing Body Meetings; Admissions; and Attendance Records.

There are a large number of papers that Governor’s need to consider on an ongoing basis, including

our Instrument of Government;

the Terms of Reference;

the Governor’s Job Description;

our Code of Practice;

School Prospectus;

Guide to the Law published by the DCSF;

School Improvement Plan;

School self-evaluation report;

Statistics and SATS results;

Head Teachers Reports;

School policies; and

OFSTED Report and Action Plan Response.

Further, Governor’s are expected to visit each School to monitor what is actually happening.

Governors are able to bring many things to the table such as experience, wider skills, communication channels for parents and the wider community and we are currently fortunate to have a group of Governors with a wide skill set to help drive the schools forward.

In light of our understanding, it is clear that Governors play a large role in schools and have considerable legal powers, duties and responsibilities. The following questions then arise (and this is not aimed at nor specific to our Federation):

Does each individual Governor know what they are supposed to be doing? We think not and additional guidance and training should be provided by the Local Authority.

Why has so much responsibility been delegated down to Governors from the Local Authority?

Has too much responsibility been delegated down to Governors from the Local Authority? We believe it has; for example, “lay” people are effectively being asked to monitor specialty issues such as SEN; Health and Safety; and Teaching in addition to being responsible for dealing with complaints and personnel issues.

Why would any sane person choose to accept the levels of responsibility & accountability as an unpaid volunteer expected of governing bodies today?

3.2 The implications of recent policy developments for governing bodies and their roles

Please see comments above. The role is becoming more challenging as Schools federate as Governors become responsible for more than one school (whilst some work is not duplicated such as policy implementation, other work is such as looking at budgets, SATs results and all the other issues individual to each school) or take academy status.

3.3 Recruiting and developing governors, including the quality of current training provision, and any challenges facing recruitment

In light of our response to 3.1 above, we believe that it is becoming more and more difficult to recruit Governors. The time commitment required is enormous and the responsibility too much for many to consider undertaking this role. Those with particular skills (such as finance or personnel) are often employed full time and work long hours already. We are fortunate to have a number of individuals with particular skills who are able and willing to give up their time.

Foundation governors are becoming increasingly difficult to recruit as the regular church going members of the Church of England decreases. We are struggling to get suitably qualified & capable people to ensure that the Christian ethos of our church schools is maintained whilst also being able to add to the portfolio of skills required to be an effective member of the FGB.

Some Governors commence the role and are clearly not aware of the full extent of the role they are undertaking.

Training is available, but there is often an additional cost attached to this now when it was once provided for maintained schools.

Online training is available but having undertaken various courses (not limited to Governor training) we question the effectiveness of this and consider that it may just be a cheap “paper based” solution and does not add real value or understanding to the role?

However, we also appreciate the time commitment to attend face to face training is often difficult.

3.4 The structure and membership of governing bodies, including the balance between representation and skills

In the last 12 months we have moved from being six individual schools with varying sizes of Governing bodies (around 60 Governors in total) to a single Governing Body with 23 members. So we have a large Governing body, which can sometimes make progress more difficult, but fewer Governor’s overall which has increased the time commitment for each Governor (for example monitoring six schools instead of one).

In a Federation situation, a smaller number of suitably experienced and qualified people could be much more effective but governors need to make the mind-shift that they are there to represent the children & families of the Federation, as opposed to representing the school that sponsored their place. Given the Local Authority is appears to be actively encouraging Federations, they should provide better guidance to Governing Bodies on how to achieve this and to ensure all the duties and responsibilities are dealt with.

There are pros and cons to having “parent” governors, some come with their own agenda, some struggle with the issue of confidentiality, but they do have a vested interest in what happens in schools and can feed back on issues that arise or how developments or strategies affect their children. However, consideration needs to be given as to whether they are to be the “mouthpiece” of the parents of “their” school or to oversee the strategic development of the federation? We think that it is, or should be, the latter.

3.5 The effectiveness and accountability of governing bodies

Governors receive little or no feedback from the Local authority or any other body on an ongoing basis. This means they do not know if what they are doing is legally right or sufficient until things go wrong.

The only feedback received is following an Ofsted report. Ofsted’s expectations of Governors is too high given the fact that they are lay people with little or no training. Governors are expected to turn up at short notice for inspections when they are often employed and have many other responsibilities and Ofsted are highly critical of the role they play, without giving any credit for “lay” or volunteer status of the role.

There is a lack of involvement from the Local Authority in Governors and the role they play. Whilst there is “Devon Association of Governors” it is often difficult to attend meetings given the wide area this covers and the location of meetings.

Given the apparent move to Federations/Academy status, there needs to be better sharing of information so that newer federations and academies can benefit from the developments that others have made, learning from their mistakes. Such meetings have been held by our Local Authority. For example we have moved from “committees” to “portfolios”. We believe that the portfolio system will make it easier to understand the needs of the six individual schools. We will be thinking of it as one organisation in six locations. The magnitude of the task of bringing six schools together required the interim step of committee style governance before portfolio style governance could be accepted as the way forward.

Six schools in one Federation also means that we can learn from each other, look at best practice and have a wider skill base both within the school and from the Governing Body.

3.6 Whether new arrangements are required for the remuneration of governors

Being a Governor involves more than just taking an interest—though this is a crucial part of the job—it also takes time.

We are aware that individual Governors dedicate a substantial amount of their time to the role, sometimes as much as 20 hours a week is necessary. This can substantially affect their other employment and/or family life. Whilst we are aware that employees are entitled to request reasonable time off in relation to Governor Responsibilities this is often unpaid, or time has to be made up. We can understand that many employers are running businesses and cannot be expected to subsidise the cost of governing schools.

Many Governors do not even claim expenses for travel or childcare as they are aware that every penny claimed comes out of school budgets and so decide to incur the costs personally.

We believe that Governors could not possibly be paid at present—where would money come from? There are certainly no funds available in school budgets. However the work that they undertake should be recognized in some form. Further, payment would only increase the expectations of governments at this time.

However, logic suggests that people need a qualification to be a governor. Then when this is accepted payment might follow (although this still raises the issue that there is no funding for this).

It also raises the question as to what is the ultimate goal for government? Is it to do away with school governors completely and appoint a “super-school quality controller” that might also take over from Ofsted because it might be cheaper?

3.7 The relationships between governing bodies and other partners, including local authorities, Academy sponsors and trusts, school leaders, and unions

The role that Local Authorities play in schools is continually reduced, this is from the support it offers to the monitoring it does. The Academy & Free School developments further reduces the role of the Local Authority and make it even more difficult to support maintained schools. Whilst we believe schools are best managed on a day to day basis in school, the lack of support and guidance makes this challenging.

3.8 Whether changes should be made to current models of governance

We believe that changes have to be made. Schools are too complicated & governance carries too much responsibility to stay the same. Until then, we recognize that we have the responsibility to succeed with what we have.

4. Recommendations

Our overall recommendation is that the role of our unpaid, unqualified Governors must be amended so that it does not carry as much responsibility. Alternatively, Governors should be qualified and paid.

Until that time, Local Authorities should be charged with providing greater levels of support (both financially and with the provision of suitable experts) to the Governors and, separately, to Headteachers and schools across all areas (including SEN, health and safety etc); or funding to schools should reflect the need to “buy” expert help externally.

December 2012