To think that a school Chair of Governors should be impartial?

[GivenchyDahhling]

I’ve recently had reason to contact the Chair of Governors at the school at which I work.

I must confess that prior to this I was pretty ignorant as to how they work and what they actually do. I know they approve pay rises and policies but aside from that, as I said, I was fairly ignorant.

On investigation, I have discovered that the Chair of Governors in my school is in a very senior management position and a director of the company owned by the patron of the multi-academy trust my school is in. They are not at all local, do not seem to have had or ever had children attend the school - and took over the role when the MAT took over the school.

I am absolutely flabbergasted (sorry for the MN hyperbole) that this is allowed. Whilst perhaps expecting complete impartiality is unreasonable (eg I would often assume governors would have children at the school), to have such a blatant financial interest in eg keeping budgets slashed as low as possible surely is too far?

Schools have parent governors but also governors or trustees via other routes, for example appointed by local authorities.

All governors have to make a declaration of interests at the start of each term.

What has having children attend school have anything to do with being a governor (except for parent governors)??
Have you looked at the Governor section of your website?
Have you looked at the trust website?
Have you seen the declaration of interests?
Why don't you ask your Head for an explanation of how the trust is managed before you start having a hissy fit

There is probably a clear list of the make up of the governors on the school website. You usually get a mix of parent governors, community governors and teacher governors. In my experience parent governors are not always the best because they can have a very skewed view of what should be going on in a school.

That information should be published on the school website under pecuniary interests. Is it?

Become a governor yourself! It's not acceptable for that individual to be the Chair - even if interests are declared, he'd need to recuse himself from financial decision making to ensure impartiality. Complain! Talk to your MP!

They dont approve pay rises. The chair is equal to all governors.

It is not good practice to have a parent governor as Chair

You need to look at the scheme of delegation for your Trust/school. That sets out what the local governance is and isnt accountable for.

In a MAT many decisions are not made at school level but at executive or board level.

Just to be clear, I understand that there are normally a mix of people - ie some parents, school staff, people with an interest in education etc and of course people have financial interests. I think it’s because it’s specifically the chair that it just looks to me - and, in my view, would to anyone - like a lack of impartiality.

@Lougle It just; in a very vague way, has the name of the patron. Not the specific role; the fact they’re a director etc. Although Google didn’t take much searching to ascertain that for myself.

Can only speak form my experience it was a closed shop and far from impartial .

Governing boards are weird in Trusts. And usually up the heads backside ime

@OliviaBond I suspect this may be why it took me by surprise as I was a bit more familiar with my previous school’s governors and I think they had a good reputation for holding the head “to account” so to speak. From the composition of this board I find it really hard to believe that’s the case, half of the governors are linked to the executive leadership and then obviously the Chair is in the position in my opening post. I didn’t realise that MATs were allowed to operate their governance in this way (again, ignorance on my part!)

@TheHoptimist

They dont approve pay rises. The chair is equal to all governors.

It is not good practice to have a parent governor as Chair

You need to look at the scheme of delegation for your Trust/school. That sets out what the local governance is and isnt accountable for.

In a MAT many decisions are not made at school level but at executive or board level.

It is not bad practice to have a parent as chair of governors.

The chair is just a coordinating role. They have the casting vote in the event of a tied vote, but otherwise have no more influence than anyone else.

On the face of it, being a patron of a company being involved in the running of the MAT isn't an issue (as long as it is declared) but that person would be wise not to be involved in key budgetary matters if there could be a conflict. Having said that, MATs still get their funding from the government, and around 85% or more of a school budget will go on staffing anyway, so there really isn't much room for manipulating budgets.

What is this 'patron' I'm confused?

It does sound like some independence is missing though

@topcat2014 It’s the best way I could think to describe it without it being incredibly outing as to which MAT I was talking about!

Kind of the “sponsor” of the trust.

[quote GivenchyDahhling]@OliviaBond I suspect this may be why it took me by surprise as I was a bit more familiar with my previous school’s governors and I think they had a good reputation for holding the head “to account” so to speak. From the composition of this board I find it really hard to believe that’s the case, half of the governors are linked to the executive leadership and then obviously the Chair is in the position in my opening post. I didn’t realise that MATs were allowed to operate their governance in this way (again, ignorance on my part!)[/quote]
Governors do hold the head to account. But it isn't the head who decides the budgets. The governors do, with the head's input. Likewise, the pay panel approves payrises and will scrutinise the (anonymous) reasons for a pay rise being awarded. In most schools, there comes a point where the majority of staff become ineligible for pay rises anyway because they reach the top of their scale. Unless the school is one that has significant churn and influxes of NQTs. With the slashing of capital funding over recent years, the most exciting thing the governors can challenge is the extent of the photocopying budget, or admin expenses. The vast majority of a school budget goes to unnegotiable costs such as staffing, SLAs for services, electricity and gas, etc. The rest is just tinkering with the edges.

But @Lougle it could be in an indirect way couldn’t it? If, for example, a staff member had been on long term sick and there was the potential for dismissal with the governors needing to give final approval, the staff member could make representations as to why they feel that their health would improve etc but if the head thought they could replace them with a cheaper NQT, that is the kind of situation where in my mind having someone with a business mind on the bottom line would override - or, at least give the appearance of overriding - the fairness of the decision making.

This isn’t my situation, but I still feel like the lack of an appearance of impartiality is to my detriment.

@GivenchyDahhling

But *@Lougle* it could be in an indirect way couldn’t it? If, for example, a staff member had been on long term sick and there was the potential for dismissal with the governors needing to give final approval, the staff member could make representations as to why they feel that their health would improve etc but if the head thought they could replace them with a cheaper NQT, that is the kind of situation where in my mind having someone with a business mind on the bottom line would override - or, at least give the appearance of overriding - the fairness of the decision making.

This isn’t my situation, but I still feel like the lack of an appearance of impartiality is to my detriment.

the lts/dismissal-highly unlikely to be a local governance decision in a MAT

@TheHoptimist I truly had no idea that the BoGs in MATs operated so differently to other schools

I think that the nature of the governing body protects people from that. There are 16 people on our GB and each person has one vote. So a single governor only has 6% of the vote, if you want to see it that way.

There are parent governors and non parent governors though. Some people get the gig because of expertise. It seems pretty normal to me the parent company would want a seat on the board, it’s what would happen in any other company.

[quote GivenchyDahhling]@TheHoptimist I truly had no idea that the BoGs in MATs operated so differently to other schools [/quote]
MATs vary in their structure- the scheme of delegation explains how each works.

But many local governing bodies/advisory councils etc have no actual power (unlike the Governing Body in a maintained school)

People at my school were worried that 25% of governors have to be Foundation (church) governors. The reality is that 25% is never going to swing a vote, so it's irrelevant in terms of influence.

As I understand it MAT replace the old boys club (board of governors) and the Local Authority control is removed. MAT are run more as a business and manage more than one school often with sub committees for financials and operations. It's big business and has been shifting away from the old style for the last 5+ years.

@Luredbyapomegranate

There are parent governors and non parent governors though. Some people get the gig because of expertise. It seems pretty normal to me the parent company would want a seat on the board, it’s what would happen in any other company.

The sponsor will have: Majority of members (company members) A designated number of trustees (company directors)

It is relatively unusual for a sponsor to have direct representation at local school level (if through the structure)

It is not unusual (infact usual) for someone employed by the MAT to be on a local governing body.

@Luredbyapomegranate

There are parent governors and non parent governors though. Some people get the gig because of expertise. It seems pretty normal to me the parent company would want a seat on the board, it’s what would happen in any other company.

Not necessarily

You dont have to have parents on a local governing body in a MAT. You can have parental representation (from any of the schools in the Trust not each school) at Trust board level instead.

I work in school governance and he might have gotten the job by default because no other bugger wanted it. That said, he probably shouldn’t be chair in that position. However the instrument of governance should be freely available on the website and tell you what the make up of the GB is. It’s normally a couple of co-opted governors who work in the local community, one or two staff members, one or two parents, a couple of local people involved in business, a priest type guy (or someone otherwise involved in “spiritual” gubbins). There will also be a skills audit which should be available and will show you what skills your GB have. If there are any glaring gaps they should be working to find someone with those skills.