Accountability & effective school
governance in changing times
Emma Knights
Chief Executive
National Governors’ Association
www.nga.org.uk
0121 237 3780
Who are we?
• A membership organisation representing
the voice of school governors in England
at national and regional level
• We aim to improve the effectiveness of
governing bodies by providing expert and
tailored information and advice
• We represent governors from all state
funded schools, including Academies
Governing Body Responsibilities
– where we are now?
Core GB Responsibilities
The governing body is the school’s accountable
body. Core responsibilities for GB’s have not
changed (2002 Education Act):
• The GB is responsible for the conduct of the
school
• The GB must work to promote high standards
But is the Coalition Government likely to change
this? No
And how is this different in Academies?
White Paper
The importance of teaching
• School governors are the unsung heroes of our
education system.... To date, governors have not
received the recognition, support or attention that
they deserve. We will put that right.
• The time and expertise of governors needs to be
better respected and deployed.
• Sometimes GBs lack the information or training to
challenge effectively and support the senior
leadership of a school to improve.
White Paper con’d
• We will work with the NGA and others to clarify
GB accountabilities and responsibilities to focus
more strongly on strategic direction
• encourage schools to appoint trained clerks
• give governors easier access to data about how
their school compares to others
• GBs benefit from having people with business or
management experience as members......we will
encourage business people and professionals to
volunteer as governors.
White Paper con’d
• National College will offer high-quality training
for chairs of governors.
• Many successful schools have smaller GBs with
individuals drawn from the community, such as
parents, businesses, local government and the
voluntary sector.
• We will legislate … so that from early 2012 all
schools can establish smaller governing bodies
with appointments primarily focused on skills
Size & composition of GBs
• GBs will not have to change their size &
composition
• The legislation is permissive – you can change
within limits if you want
• Size does not relate to effectiveness
• This is not the end of the stakeholder model
• Ensuring a minimum of two parent governors
• Regulations will follow the Education Bill and
changes will be possible from Sept 2012
Lord Hill at NGA’s Annual Conference
1. ‘the most important decision-making group in
any school is the governing body’.
2. ‘governing bodies should set the overall
strategic direction of a school, hold the
headteacher to account and have a relentless
focus on driving up standards – but not get
dragged into micro-managing the school or the
minutiae of its day-to-day activities’.
Lord Hill at NGA’s Annual Conference
3. ‘we need to ensure that governing bodies have
the best possible people, with the right mix of
skills and expertise, rather than just because
they are there wearing a particular hat’
4. ‘all schools are different and need different
things at different stages of their development
– so school governance needs to be more
flexible’.
Lord Hill at NGA’s Annual Conference
5. ‘an energetic and sustained attack on the
culture of guidance and paperwork … if you are
serious about trusting people, you have to start
trusting them’.
6. ‘we need – even in these straitened times – to
find ways of supporting governors, especially
chairs of governors, including by providing
access to high-quality training and also making
it easier to see a wide range of information and
data about the performance of local schools’.
The Government’s position to-date
• More local decision-making & less prescription
• Academies Act 2010:
– no maximum size for GBs
– more flexibility on numbers for difference categories
– elections for at least 2 parent governors
• Education Bill sets the framework for maintained
schools to have the same flexibility, and for the
removal of a number of local authority duties,
e.g. compulsory SIPs
• Reducing bureaucracy: less guidance
• DfE wants to communicate with governors but ...
So do we need a new model?
No, governance is not ‘broken’
• But we could do better: Ofsted judgments
• Draw on the best features of so-called ‘business’
model and ‘stakeholder’ model
• Do we have enough volunteers?
• Do we have enough time?
• Need to ensure strategic focus
• Need to ensure school leaders are equipped to
do their jobs, including HR aspects
• Need to ensure access to support & expertise
What makes a good GB?
• Relationships based on trust and respect
• Managing the business well:
– Chairing: NGA’s ‘Chair’s Handbook’
– Clerking: NGA’s ‘Welcome to Clerking’
– Appropriate delegation & committee structure
– Managing time
– Doing the right tasks
• Knowing the school – hard & soft understanding
A good GB con’d
• Collaboration & working in partnership
– Listening to parents
• Accountability: reporting to the community
• Reviews its own effectiveness
– e.g. GovernorMark, Target Tracker, ‘a’ SEF
– Commitment to their own development
• High aspirations and a focus on school
improvement
And this is essentially the same in
Academies
• If you are considering converting to an academy,
see NGA’s Q&As v10
• do you need to convert in order to achieve what
you want to achieve?
• do you have staffing capacity & skills to carry out
additional responsibilities?
• Trustees delegate responsibilities to GB
• Company limited by guarantee
• Consultation
Federations
Similar questions posed by considering federating
e.g. Is this necessary to achieve what you want?
But only one governing body:
• do all schools have the same ethos?
• is this a take-over or an equal partnership?
• relationships, trust & ownership?
• knowledge of schools, especially if not all are
local
Accountability
• To the local authority or the Secretary of
State
• Judgments by Ofsted
• A ‘market’ regulated by parental choice
• Transparency – publication of data
• Stakeholders on the governing body
• Reporting to our communities
• Who holds the GB to account?