Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Fergal Roche

I am writing as Chair of Governors at a voluntary aided secondary school in Lambeth and as a governor of an academy in Surrey. I am CEO of a medium sized (52 employees) education organisation. I am the former head teacher of three schools.

Summary

Governing bodies need to be much accountable for the success of their schools and stand alongside the head when judgments are made by Ofsted.

Governing bodies should be run more like the boards of companies.

They should be accountable to parents and contractually liable for meeting the demands of their funders.

They should appoint professionally-competent, skilled individuals to oversee the strategic direction of the school and limit their numbers to ensure effectiveness.

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

1.1 Governing bodies should be like company boards, responsible to their stakeholders for meeting objectives which they have shared with them.

1.2 They should meet the parent body each year to present their objectives for the year ahead and account for their results from the previous year—just like a shareholder meeting.

1.3 Governing bodies are often confused about their role and assume the local authority will take the main responsibility for the school. Paying the chair and chairs of committees would help to reinforce a clearer sense of ownership of responsibility.

1.4 The head teacher or principal should be seen by all to be the agent of the governing body, employed to lead the execution of its strategic aims.

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

2.1 With schools becoming more independent and autonomous, governing bodies need to have skills that they previously got from local authorities.

2.2 Governing bodies should have the capacity to audit the performance of the school, so that Ofsted is highly unlikely to uncover weaknesses that are not already being dealt with.

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

3.1 The role of chair is so important that the chair’s performance should be monitored carefully and a 360 degree appraisal take place each year. Boards need guidance as to how to make summative judgements regarding the chair’s performance and how to insist on follow up action

3.2 Chairs should be required to report back to their governing bodies how they are going to follow up on feedback from their appraisals, including training that they will subscribe to.

3.3 I recently went through such an appraisal and subsequently issued the following statement (names have been changed to disguise identities) to my governing body:

Thank you to everyone who contributed (most people). I appreciate the encouraging remarks and will work on the following (not in order of importance):

1.encourage use of email with and between governors;

2.send round the vision and objectives of the school (Wanda/Denise, please);

3.continue to encourage the governing body’s role as critical friend/strategic scrutineer;

4.make sure effective induction processes are in place (Tim, could your committee give this some thought please?);

5.work more to help governors to understand their roles and how the GB works;

6.strive to get the right balance between inclusivity and efficiency/effectiveness in getting the work of the GB done;

7.pass round the results of the skills audit (I actually gave these to committee chairs to share, so perhaps chairs you could pass these on please?);

8.delegate more (see 2, 4 and 7 – see, I’m learning already …);

9.encourage GB to review regularly how it works and how it can be more effective;

10.make agendas more strategically-focused; and

11.don’t let meetings run on too long.

3.4 As we have become more disciplined in the way we run meetings, we seem to have found it easier to recruit governors.

3.5 Having a strong, well networked community leader on the governing body (in the case of the Lambeth school, this is the vicar of the local church) makes it easier to spot good candidates.

3.6 Governing bodies need access to flexible support tools, giving them the information and guidance they need to do their jobs effectively. One such service should answer questions directly from governors, but make the answers available to all governors.

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

4.1 The following skills/experience/understanding need to be key ingredients of a governing body:

a strong, competent chair;

financial;

buildings;

education leadership;

local community contextual knowledge;

legal;

at least one person who is a close observer of the experiences of students/pupils (eg parents); and

strong professional clerk.

4.2 The head/principal should be obliged to be a governor, so that s/he is equally committed to the strategy agreed by governors and is obliged to co-own that strategy rather than merely being its executor.

4.3 Various members of staff may attend governing body meetings to give or hear reports on particular matters, but they should not themselves be governors. Only the head/principal should bridge the clear dividing line between board and executive.

4.4 It is my belief that staff representation on governing bodies has grown in recent years out of a mistaken belief that staff will commit more fully to the school’s enterprise if they have a stake in it via representation on the governing body.

4.5 It is incumbent on the part of the governing body to make sure there is clear and disciplined communication between the board and the staff so that the views of all sections of the staff are heard. The conduit for such communication should not be the head/principal alone.

4.6 Because the governing body should report to the principal stakeholders of the school each year, representation on that body from various stakeholders should no longer be essential.

4.7 I believe that governing bodies should be limited to a membership of 12 people, very much agreeing with Andrew Adonis, on pp139–141 of his Education Education Education book, recently published. More than 12 becomes unwieldy and bureaucratic, as well as making it more difficult to hold the head/principal properly to account.

5. The effectiveness and accountability of governing bodies

5.1 Governing bodies should audit themselves with the 20 questions developed by Lord Bichard (working with Ten Governor Support)/Neil Carmichael MP and the APPG:

Right skills: Do we have the right skills on the governing body?

1.Have we completed a skills audit of our governing body?

2.Do we appoint governors on the basis of their skills, and do we know how to find people with the necessary skills?

Effectiveness: Are we as effective as we could be?

3.Do we understand our roles and responsibilities?

4.Do we have a professional clerk and run meetings efficiently?

5.What is our training and development budget and does every governor receive the support they need to carry out their role effectively?

6.Do we know about good practice from across the country?

7.Is the size, composition and committee structure of our governing body conducive to effective working?

8.Does every member of the governing body make a regular contribution and do we carry out an annual review of the governing body’s performance?

Strategy: Does the school have a clear vision?

9.Have we developed long-term aims for the school with clear priorities in an ambitious school development plan which is regularly monitored and reviewed?

10.Does our strategic planning cycle drive the governing body’s activities and agenda setting?

Accountability of the executive: Do we hold the school leaders to account?

11.Do we understand the school’s performance data well enough to properly hold school leaders to account?

12.How effective is our performance management of the head teacher?

13.Are our financial management systems robust and do we ensure best value for money?

Engagement: Are we properly engaged with our school community, the wider school sector and the outside world?

14.How do we listen to and understand our pupils, parents and staff?

15.How do we report to our parents and local community regularly?

16.What benefit do we draw from collaboration with other schools and other sectors, locally and nationally?

Role of chair: Does our chair show strong and effective leadership?

17.Do we carry out a regular 360 review of the chair’s performance?

18.Do we engage in good succession planning?

19.Are the chair and committee chairs re-elected each year?

Impact: Are we having an impact on outcomes for pupils?

20.How much has the school improved over the last three years, and what has the governing body’s contribution been to this?

5.2 The names of every member of the school governing body should be prominently displayed in the entrance halls of each school.

5.3 Ofsted inspection reports should name the head teacher/principal together with the names of governors and not separate these, in order to make clear that the governing body is responsible for the judgements made in the report.

5.4 If a school fails and the head teacher/principal is dismissed, it should be axiomatic that the whole governing body is also dismissed.

5.5 Any press releases concerning such matters should only name the head teacher/principal if all governor names are also mentioned.

5.6 All official documents and data related to the school should only name the head/principal if they also name the governors alongside.

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

6.1 I believe that chairs of governing bodies and committee chairs should be paid. Pay a £6,000 honorarium to the chair of governors and £2,000 to committee chairs (but no more than three of these) in London and the southeast and vary this according to regional cost of living.

6.2 Governing a school should be a serious undertaking and carried out to the highest level of competence possible. Paying governors is at the very least an important symbol that recognises this obligation and the burden it requires to deliver to such expectations.

6.3 I do not have a view as to whether other governors should be paid. However, it should be clear to every governor that their role is not an honour, but a requirement to work for the benefit of the school and the community it serves.

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

7.1 There should be a written agreement between the funder (whether or not this is the local authority) and the school, setting out the expectations and requirements. Governing bodies should ensure that they meet the school’s side of the agreement—and demand the same of the other party.

7.2 Only in the case of school failure should local authorities be closely involved in the actual running of schools.

7.3 There is much to be gained by schools developing their own characters and unique organisational cultures. Governing bodies need at least some degree of independence from local authorities and other collective bodies for this to be encouraged.

7.4 Governing bodies should be encouraged to work with other groups to the mutual benefit of all.

7.5 Schools should be helped to procure effectively and, to that end, to join appropriate collaborative partnerships and schemes.

7.6 Governing bodies should be free either to engage in collective arrangements across groups/localities with unions—or to act independently.

7.7 Schools in more deprived communities should have the provision to pay higher salaries to its staff—and the freedom to make such decisions.

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

8.1 The governing body needs to be the employer, if it is to have real authority.

8.2 The funder should receive a copy of the school’s annual report to parents as evidence that the school is keeping to its agreement to deliver services and outcomes.

December 2012