Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Buckinghamshire Association of School Governors (BASG).

BASG is a voluntary body of school governors, independent of the Local Authority, supporting effective governance in schools in Buckinghamshire. The association is affiliated to the National Governors’ Association. This evidence is not only related to our experience within Buckinghamshire but also to knowledge of schools and governors in other authorities.

Executive Summary

School Governors take on the role to help their schools. Many of them when they take it on, don’t altogether understand what they mean by that and very often it can result in a rather outdated approach of patting people on the head and telling them what a wonderful job they are doing. They are unquestionably supportive, but with effective induction training can soon be brought to the understanding that this job is also about challenging their schools to improve and to provide absolutely the best opportunities for every child that passes through them.

Mandatory induction training is in our opinion unquestionably the key to raising standards of effective governance and therefore supporting school improvement. It raises governors’ awareness not just of what their roles and responsibilities are, but also of what information they need to be able to meet them. It helps them to understand that they need to earn the respect of the professionals by spending time in the school while it is working and gives them tips on how to establish their own credibility.

The relationship with the Headteacher is fundamental to the governing body having a credible position in a school and is crucial if good relationships with staff are to be established. The leadership of the Chair of Governors and their working relationship with the Headteacher can make or break governance in a school.

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

(a)Governors in the main understand their overall responsibility to be that of holding their school to account for the quality of the education it provides. They do this by understanding the context in which their school operates and by monitoring the progress of the school and evaluating the impact of what it is providing for the children. Based on their knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the school they, with the input of the Headteacher, are responsible for setting and continually reviewing the strategic direction of their school.

(b)A constructive, professional working relationship with the Headteacher is crucial to the effectiveness of a governing body, to enable positive relationships with staff and to enable governors to operate in what sometimes may be sensitive situations. Good Headteachers welcome challenge from their governors but in many instances will rely on governors for support at times when they are isolated by their leadership role.

(c)Governors need high quality information to enable them to be accountable and although there are instances where governors fail to fulfil this role, there are also situations where they are impeded from doing so by an obstructive Headteacher. Governors fear that too much challenge will suggest mistrust of the senior management but are anxious that what the school is telling them may be wrong.

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

(a)There is a feeling that the expectations of the role have become more incoherent as the line between strategic and operational has appeared to blur. Many governors struggle to understand how they can be held accountable for standards in the classroom when they are discouraged from making these judgements.

(b)With reference to 1c) above the loss of the School Improvement Partner role has left governors without triangulated confirmation that what the school is telling them is the right story and the whole story. Governors are having to become sufficiently “expert” in the ways of their schools to be able to reassure themselves that all is well.

(c)With the increase in freedoms governors feel that they should be able to influence more what is happening in schools but many now feel isolated. Policy changes which have resulted in the diminution in services from Local Authorities have affected the support available to governing bodies in areas such as Human Resources, Legal and Democratic Services and Property Services—Governor Services remain a strength, however, in many areas; there is a loss in information sharing affecting the confidence that governors have in the quality of other service providers who are now flooding the market.

(d)Academy schools with their structure of Members, Directors and Governors have in some cases, we believe, blurred the lines of accountability with many governing bodies no longer aware of their specific roles and responsibilities and where delegation of responsibility starts and ends.

3. Recruiting and developing governors, including the quality of current provision, and any challenges facing recruitment

(a)Issues around recruitment can vary between schools even in the same neighbourhood. It is very often the schools with the social and demographic problems that have the greatest problem in recruiting.

(b)Employers are encouraged to give governors time from work to enable them to fulfil their duties but are not required to pay them and self-employed people in particular find it difficult to commit the time required. It is recognised that governance increases one’s skills particularly in the areas of leadership and management and that businesses benefit from this and acknowledgement of this in some way would enable more able, skilled people to engage.

(c)Training is essential for effective governance. Governors need more than anything else to understand their specific roles and responsibilities and we would reiterate calls for mandatory induction training for new members. Further development of governors can depend on the attitude of the Chair and of course on the availability now of support from the Local Authority.

(d)The recognition of the importance of the role of the Chair is welcome but there are many Chairs who have been in post too long and whose attitude, demeanour and understanding of what the role now entails can negatively impact on the rest of their governors.

(e)The training for Chairs of Governors should be delivered by Chairs of Governors and not the legions of ex Headteachers who are lining up to take on this work.

(f)The effective education of our children is unquestionably the most important thing we can do for the future of our society and we believe that more could still be done to raise the profile of governance with the general public to attract more to the role.

4. The structure and membership of governing bodies including the balance between representation and skills

(a)The focus on smaller governing bodies based on skills has confused and indeed panicked many as neither “smaller” nor “skills” has ever been categorically defined. Governors are concerned that the role does not become even more of a burden than some already consider it to be and so tend to shy away from reducing their number.

(b)And what skills exactly are the ones that are so sought after? Many highly talented and experienced professionals recruited to governing bodies actually find that they have not the time either to devote to the role or to get to know the context of their school; this latter issue can result in members of other professions, for example finance or Human Resources, trying to impose their business culture on the school environment. While many of our schools could be run in a more professional and business like way, the fact that the raw material is children and the product is their education makes this a quite unique setting.

(c)Governors need to care about children and have a willingness to learn how their school works and those attributes along with representation of those groups who have the greatest interest in the outcomes for the children is, in our view, the optimum mix.

5. The effectiveness and accountability of governing bodies

(a)The level of effectiveness of a governing body is in direct proportion to its fundamental understanding of the role, its ability to create good relationships, its ability to communicate effectively internally and with its stakeholders and the leadership of the Chair.

(b)An effective governing body self evaluates and undertakes training on a regular basis.

(c)The loss of the School Improvement Partner means that many governing bodies no longer have the opportunity to triangulate the information they are receiving from the school to confirm its accuracy.

(d)Unfortunately it has often been difficult to identify an underperforming governing body until it is too late; the demise of Local Authority governor support services will create an even greater risk of this happening and the isolation of some converter Academies will mean that there is little or no scrutiny whatsoever.

(e)Powers of intervention need to be strengthened at local level such that when a school and/or its governing body is perceived to be failing it can be prevented from doing so. Intervening once a school has failed is too late for those children.

(f)10 questions for governors in the white paper, 20 questions from the APPG, Governormark and the Ofsted report “Learning from the Best” have all helped to raise awareness among governing bodies of the information to which they should have access.

(g)The NGA has published a series of “Knowing your School” guides which have also raised awareness in some Headteachers who were hindering access to certain sources of data.

(h)The inclusion of specific requirements in the latest Ofsted framework has without a doubt focused attention on governors’ accountability and Headteachers are encouraging their governors to concentrate more on areas such as staffing that were hitherto considered outside the remit of governors.

(i)Performance Management has at last been recognised as the key management tool for raising standards and providing governors with evaluative information. This must be made to work, but not in the threatening way in which the latest version was launched; it must be used to support our teachers to improve and to give all our children absolutely the best educational experience that they can.

6. Whether new arrangements are required for the remuneration of governors

(a)Categorically not! Even the proposal that Chairs of Governors should receive an honorarium meets with much opposition in that this would undoubtedly change the relationship between the Chair and the rest of the Governing Body.

(b)What would be welcome as mentioned in 3b) above would be some recognition perhaps in tax breaks for people who give their time in such activities—this would reward governors without them having to take money from the school budget—money that is for the children. The majority of governors already fail to take their expenses for the same reason.

(c)It would be useful, however, if the time governors spend were somehow recorded so that the true cost of governance could become transparent.

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

(a)The relationship that governors have with different services or partners has always differed from school to school but with the reduction in many of the local authority services governing bodies are having to become more aware of other providers.

(b)HR departments in particular are becoming depleted and, along with changes to staffing regulations, are causing governors to come into more frequent contact with unions.

(c)Parents have been represented for many years on LA Overview and Scrutiny Committees by Parent Governors but many LAs have found this role difficult to fill and it has been difficult for governors to understand how they represent this constituency or even communicate with it. What are we trying to achieve through this representation and is there another way of doing it.

(d)We have little experience of Academy sponsors.

8. Whether changes should be made to current models of governance

(a)Governors have the option now to operate within many different models and ways. It is important that changes are made that are right for the context of a school and there is not an assumption that “one size fits all”.

(b)We would continue to support the stakeholder model and with the flexibilities that are now available this can be most effective.

(c)As said above pressure for reduction in size is not helpful and the focus on the IEB model with its very different agenda has caused much anxiety.

January 2013