1. Chris Caroe, Head of the School Governance Unit
A policy overview
November 2013
Chris Caroe, Head of the School Governance Unit

2. High quality governance is crucial
To children’s education and life chances
To holding heads and schools to account
To the future of schools
To making the most of the time invested by dedicated volunteers
As the strategic leaders of schools, GBs make a difference to outcomes, every school needs a good GB
In our increasingly autonomous system:
We need GBs to create robust local accountability
The future of schools is in governors’ hands – including in relation to decisions about academy status
We recognise the huge commitment of volunteers and want their efforts to be worthwhile by ensuring they are focused on priorities and operating effectively
While there’s strong and growing consensus about the importance and nature of good governance, there’s still a job to do. Ofsted data suggests that about 40% of GBs are less than good, and do not hold leaders to account sufficiently for school improvement.
Yet Ofsted find that many schools have mediocre governance 1

3. We want all GBs to operate as non-executive boards focused on three core functions – as reflected in Ofsted’s inspection criteria
Core Function
Ofsted criteria for effective governance
Setting strategic direction
clarity of vision and ethos
engaging stakeholders
meeting statutory duties
Using data to provide challenge and hold leaders to account for teaching, achievement, behaviour and safety
strengthening school leadership, including skills of GB
performance managing the headteacher
contributing to school self-evaluation and evaluating GB’s impact
Creating robust accountability
Over time and in different places, people have had and may still hold different views on the role and purpose of GBs. Some may see them as a forum for all key stakeholders to have a say in what happens in schools. Others may think of GBs as a filter translating national policy into the local context. Others may see GBs as ensuring the schools’ compliance with rules and regulations.
All of those models have value to a greater or lesser extent. But Ofsted and Ministers’ vision for the primary role of GBs is as non-executive boards – akin to the board of charity trustees or company directors, strategic leaders driving the success and effectiveness of their organisation. Their primary role is to set the long term vision and hold executive leaders to account for the school’s performance – both educational and financial. This role is now defined in legislation for maintained schools, described in the Governors’ Handbook for all schools and academies, and reflected in the criteria inspectors use to judge the effectiveness of governance.
Being on the board of an organisation with a multi-million pound turnover is a demanding task, and many GBs may be feeling the pressure. But it’s a vital role and expectations are high. Governors may be volunteers, but they can’t afford to be amateur. We need more professional standards of governance, with GBs that are skilled and confident to not only ensure schools’ compliance, but to also take the lead in shaping schools’ long-term goals and strategic priorities and establishing robust arrangements for holding heads to account for progress towards them.
The Government’s aim to deliver a programme of reform to stimulate and support change.
solvency and effective financial management
use of Pupil Premium and other resources to overcome barriers to learning
Ensuring best use of financial resources 2

4. A range of policy objectives underpin this vision of more ‘professionalised’ school governance
Inform: Improve information, data and guidance for governors
Re-model: Create greater freedom for more effective models of governance
Recruit: Attract more higher-quality governors with the skills GBs need
Build capacity: Improve training and support to increase GBs’ effectiveness
Sharpen accountability: Inspect and intervene to judge and improve performance 3

5. Clear policy framework Good school performance data
Aim 1: Inform
We want governors to be informed about the nature of their role and responsibilities, and about their schools
Clear policy framework
Governors’ Handbook and Academies Financial Handbook
Roles, Procedures and Allowances regs and Departmental Advice
Draft revised statutory guidance on 2012 Constitution regulations
Good school performance data
The inspection framework is a powerful tool for focusing minds and ensuring GBs understand what’s expected of them. We have also set clear expectations through:
The Governors’ Handbook for both academy and maintained school governors
The Roles, Procedures and Allowances and Departmental Advice – which covers GBs core functions, powers and limits of delegation, and the importance of the role of the chair
Consulting November early Feb 2014 on draft new statutory guidance – which covers size, composition and skills
Governors need to know their schools – buy it’ worth emphasising that that doesn’t mean governors inspecting lessons or making their own judgement about the quality of teaching. But it does mean understanding in detail the performance of the school – that includes the performance of pupils; teachers and finances – by interrogating both national data sets and by requesting and scrutinising appropriate and relevant in-year data from headteachers.
There are a growing number of both national and local products in the market aiming to provide governing bodies with reports or ‘dashboards’ of information to monitor performance – the Department’s aim is improve the collection, storage and dissemination of all the data we hold: to both encourage and enable these products to continue to develop, but also to replace all of our existing systems including RAISE online with a new portal in place during 2015 to provide much easier access to timely performance and benchmarking data.
Ofsted dashboard, and new shorter RAISE online Summary report
New data warehouse and portal from 2015 for all DfE data 4

6. Across groups of schools
Aim 2: Re-model
We are creating a more flexible legal framework to enable but not mandate better models of governance
At school level
We want GB constitution to focus more on skills
Consultation on changes to 2012 Constitution regulations
Considerable freedom for academies – transition to academy status key opportunity to review GB structure and membership
Our view of the purpose of regulations and other legal frameworks is to see them as creating the powers to enable and support effective governance. We don’t want them to constrain or limit GBs’ freedom to operate as they think best.
At school level, we have increased the flexibility for GBs to recruit people for the skills they can contribute – maintained schools can now opt into the more flexible regulations, and academy articles of association provide considerable freedoms. We are encouraging schools to see conversion as an ideal opportunity to review and reform their governing body to be fit for purpose.
For maintained schools we are consulting until early February 2014 on proposals to amend the 2012 Constitution Regulations . A small number of specific but potentially significant changes will strengthen the focus on governors having the skills for the role.
We recognise the value of governance spanning more than one school or academy – the opportunity for a more strategic perspective and ability to contrast between schools. The regulatory framework is in place for maintained schools to collaborate or federate, and academies to do likewise through Umbrella Trusts or Multi Academy Trusts. In the next version of the model funding agreement, we’ll be offering MATs even greater flexibility by allowing LGBs to govern more than one school, and replacing the requirement that every academy in a MAT has it’s own LGB or AB with an outcome focused requirement for effective school level engagement. We’ll also be standardising on the use of the term ‘trustee’ for anyone on the board of the academy, and ‘local governor’ for anyone who sits on a local governing body within a MAT.
NCTL will shortly be publishing new guidance on governance in MATs and Federations.
Across groups of schools
We want to enable more effective governance structures
Federation and Collaboration regulations for maintained schools
Flexibility of MAT and UT structures for academies
New NCTL guidance on governance in MATs and Federations 5

7. We want to attract more high quality governors
Aim 3: Recruit
We want to attract more high quality governors
SGOSS
Funding committed to 2015 to enable growth in free service to schools, academies and LAs
Employers
Working with partners to plan campaign to engage more employers to support staff to volunteer as governors
The effectiveness of GBs is dependent on the quality of the governors they recruit – and we want to help GBs recruit governors with the skills they need.
Being clear about the nature of the role will help to attract the right kind of people.
SGOSS offers a free service to schools, academies and LAs – their aim to reach 25% of schools by end of this financial year.
We are in early discussions with SGOSS, NGA, CBI and others to think about how we can do more to encourage employers to support their staff to volunteer as governors. Not just because GBs need their skills, but because governors benefit from support from their employer and because of the benefits that being a governors offers to individuals and their employers – particularly in relation to their learning and development
We aim to recognise as many outstanding governors as possible through the Honours system – and we need a continuous flow of high quality nominations focused on the impact that individuals have had. The school governance unit is ready and willing to help draft nominations, so please get in touch if you know anyone who particularly deserves recognition in this way.
Recognition
Always looking for high quality honours nominations 6

8. We are increasing our support to GBs
Aim 4: Build capacity
We are increasing our support to GBs
NLGs
300 National Leaders of Governance by March 2014
National College Training and Development
Chairs leadership development programme – 2,300 by 2014
New training programme for clerks – 2,000 by 2015
Training workshops for governors – on Teachers’ PRP, RAISEonline, and financial efficiency available in 2014
The Government has no plans to mandate training, but it has made clear in guidance, as it is in the inspection framework, that it is GBs’ responsibility to make sure that they have or develop the skills and capacity to deliver their functions effectively.
We recognise that there is a wide range of resources and organisations aiming to support governing bodies – and it’s right that they are free to select the support that best meets their needs. Our approach has been to mobilise peer-to-peer support, invest in training development programmes in specific high impact or high priority areas, and address some specific gaps in the market. In July 2013, Lord Nash announced a doubling of the investment in governance NCTL programmes:
We are continuing to expand the NLG programme – to 300 by March NLG advocates have been appointed to support recruitment of NLGs and promote awareness of their role and the level of take up by schools.
NCTL is also
Expanding it’s chairs development programme, with 50% subsidy for all participants to March 14
Developing a new training programme for clerks available from summer 2014, recognising clerks key role in advising GBs on their role and functions
Developing specific training workshops for governors on specific policy priorities – PRP (Jan 14), RAISE online data (Feb 14) , and financial efficiency (Mar 14)
We also think it’s important that there remains a free national service to offer advice to GBs on their specific circumstances /issues – so we’re re-contracting for the Governorline service from Mar 14.
GovernorLine
New contract in place by March 2014 7

9. Aim 5: Sharpen accountability
We are working with Ofsted to make sure under-performance is identified and addressed
Inspection
Explicit focus on governance in every inspection report
External reviews in all ‘RI’ schools, with robust monitoring of impact
NCTL guidance on external reviews being updated
Intervention
There is a strong focus on governance in inspections – and indeed Lord Nash told the Select Committee that he thought the Ofsted inspection framework was the sharpest tool in the box for improving the quality of governance.
The 9 criteria in the inspection framework for judging the effectiveness of governance are a powerful benchmark for every GB . From July these were tweaked to include a stronger focus on: GBs evaluating their own impact; development their own skills; and using data to create robust accountability.
There is no longer a separate judgement on governance, but there is an explicit comment on governance in every inspection report. Where governance is weak in RI schools, an external review will be recommended. There’s advice, which NCTL is updating, on how to commission and conduct and effective review, but there’s no regulation or management of the market and schools are free to commission whoever they want. There is however a very high expectation that reviews will lead to rapid and material change to address the weaknesses identified. Inspectors will be looking for this in their monitoring visits and commenting on it explicitly in their follow up letters. Ensuring that we see impact from external reviews and what to do if we don’t is a matter of interest at the highest levels within the Department and Ofsted – so any GB in receipt of a recommendation for a review would be advised to heed the wake up call and seek and act quickly on some high quality support and advice.
Finally, the SoS has a range of means and powers of intervention – including the use of IEBs and/or help to find an academy solution.
Warning notices and IEBs
Termination of academy funding agreements
Help for failing schools to find high quality academy sponsor 8

10. Look out for…
Department Advice on Roles, Procedures and Allowances regulations
Consultation on Constitution regulations
Campaign to engage more employers
New NLGs designated in your area
New NCTL workshops and updated guidance on external reviews 9

11. For more information please visit
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