Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by UNISON
1. Introduction
1.1 UNISON is the largest public service trade union in the UK representing around 1.4 million members. The majority of our members are in the public services including approximately 350,000 working in the education sector, around 240,000 of whom work in schools.
2. The purpose, roles and responsibilities of school governing bodies within wider context of school governance and leadership
2.1 Governing bodies face a challenging future, re-defining their role in response to the government’s rapid re-structuring of the education landscape. The shift in the balance of responsibilities between schools, local authorities and central government means that governing bodies need to have a set of clearly defined roles and responsibilities. This includes sorting out the delicate relationship with the Head based around constructive challenge, now that schools have increasing autonomy.
3. The implications of recent policy developments for governing bodies and their roles
3.1 The introduction of academies (including Free Schools, Studio Schools and University Technical Colleges) and the diminished role of local authorities create particular uncertainties for governing bodies, as they gather enhanced duties. As well as internal challenge there is a need to ensure that schools have consistent external challenge to ensure school improvement. The role of governing bodies in this is now much more complicated.
3.2 Local authority school improvement support is declining for community schools (and those academies that buy-in from them) as funding from the Department for Education (DfE) diminishes. However authorities still keep an eye on school performance in the areas they cover. Academy chains have variable school improvement systems in place depending on whether they are heavily centralised or federated. UNISON’s real concern is around improvement in stand-alone academies (and newly formed federations/multi academy trusts), where the governing bodies appear to be the main judge of standards, along with Ofsted inspections. Recent proposals by Ofsted to strengthen their regional structures will not fill the gap left by local authorities. Additionally the leadership of Ofsted does not seem as independent from central government as it has been.
3.3 Alternative middle tier structures being proposed also have their problems. How democratic, costly and accountable would appointed school commissioners be? Elected commissioners may be democratic, but they would have weak links with both local support structures and national academy chains (and as mayoral referenda have shown, elected commissioners may not be wanted).
3.4 Schools continue to pick up additional responsibilities, such as careers advice and additional health and safety duties, which they need to be ready to deal with. For instance recent government policy statements have also suggested that responsibility for health and safety in all schools (not just non-local authority controlled) should transfer to governing bodies. If this were to happen then the management of asbestos in schools would become the responsibility of all governing bodies. UNISON along with the Joint Union Asbestos Campaign believes that that the management of increasingly difficult issues such as this could have an impact on schools’ ability to recruit governors. The recent asbestos incident in Cwncarn High School in Wales is evidence of how things can and do go wrong when asbestos is not properly managed in a school.
4. Recruiting and developing governors, including the quality of current training provision and any challenges facing recruitment
4.1 Increased responsibility should necessitate improved training. Currently training is patchy and there is a danger that local authority training programmes will wither away in some areas. Again small and stand alone academies may face difficult choices when prioritising training. We have particular concerns around the provisions of training in human resources/personnel, legal and insurance issues and health and safety duties. In relation to our example in paragraph 3.4, we believe that all governors, head teachers, caretakers and bursars should receive school specific asbestos management training.
4.2 We are also concerned that without local authorities monitoring training quality, some schools might be attracted to training which is cheap but inadequate. The National Governors Association have a vital role to play as they provide excellent advice and support.
4.3 The government could help raise the status of governing bodies, by advertising their value, and promoting the importance of members of the community getting involved in their local school. Being a school governor should be recognised as an important role in the community, and employers should be encouraged to give time off to staff who are school governors so they can fulfil their duties.
5. The structure and membership of governing bodies, including the balance between representation and skills
5.1 Governing bodies should have a mix of representation and skills. The two are not mutually exclusive. It is important that governing bodies contain a wide range of skills, to ensure that they can fulfil their duties and recognise the type of school and its mission. However, additionally there is an important community aspect which needs to be taken into account by the presence of local parents.
5.2 There is a need to recognise that the knowledge of frontline staff is also vital; and this does not just mean teachers. The government rightly recognises the importance of quality staff in delivering quality and we believe these skills are highly beneficial in informing boards of current education practice and also putting forward the views of staff. In co-operative trust schools (of which there are around 400) all staff are encouraged to become involved in the trust board and share in the decision-making process.
6. The effectiveness and accountability of governing bodies
6.1 Ofsted has previously detailed their view of the characteristics of successful governing bodies. Earlier this year the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on School Governance published its “Twenty key questions for a school governing body to ask itself”. Both documents contain much sensible advice.
6.2 In the new environment it is particularly important that governing bodies ensure clarity of different roles and responsibilities, notably with their Head of School. The danger of all boards is that they do not get the balance right, so that instead of focussing on overseeing strategy, risk and challenge, they try to micro manage the day to day running of the school. The provision of statistical and financial information becomes vital, and boards need to be sure that they are being provided with the right information, rather than that which suits.
6.3 An area that needs addressing is how ineffective governors, and especially chairs of governors, are tackled. Governors in community schools can raise concerns with their local authority, and those in academy chains can approach their head office, but smaller academies are restricted. The relationship between the Chair and Head is vital—we have seen too many Chairs who have been in thrall to their Head.
7. Remuneration
7.1 UNISON does not believe that governors should be remunerated. Funding is already tight and with budgets unlikely to increase in coming years this would be an unnecessary drain. There is also a danger that governors could become focussed on money rather than improving the school.
7.2 However, we do recognise that there may be the case for paying specific expenses, for example child care costs to allow those who might be restricted from attending otherwise.
8. The relationship between governing bodies and other partners, including local authorities, academy sponsors and trusts, school leaders and unions
8.1 The local authority remains the key organisation in providing strategic advice and information for all community schools. We believe that sensible academies should avail themselves of the services of their local authority.
8.2 A more interesting new relationship is that between those academies that are part of chains and their head office. As some chains act more like a franchise, academies within such chains them will have more autonomy than those that are part of a centralised chain. Boards will need to adapt to the balance from their former relationship with their local authority. Some may see the sense of taking advice and support from both national chain and local authority.
8.3 Unions have a very good relationship with most schools. UNISON staff members, and also UNISON members not employed by schools, give significant amount of their own time in running governing bodies. Inevitably there are occasional tensions, often in relation to our key role of supporting staff that are subject to grievance or disciplinary hearings. With an increasingly fragmented world we expect to increase and support UNISON staff and members who are governors, advising them on changes in the Education environment.
9. Whether changes should be made to current models of governance
9.1 Schools should constantly review their own board constitution. The APPG’s “Twenty questions” document is a useful starting point. However there is also no reason to change them if they work.
9.2 There appears to be an increasing clamour from some to move to a smaller “business model”. However as the DfE’s own internal review has shown there is limited evidence on the optimum size of a governing body and governors do not see this as one of the most important elements in effective governing. Similarly there is little evidence of any link between size of governing board and attainment. A one-size fits all model would not be helpful.
January 2013