Schools: Parent Governors

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree that we should encourage parents to stand for governing bodies, but we have been very clear over the past few years about focusing governance on skills. It is a skills-based function and that is why we have continually focused on skills. Anyone sitting on a governing body must have those skills, or certainly be able to develop them in relatively short order.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have announced that academies will be required to have parent councils. I think that this is a good idea, but if it is, why was it not included in the White Paper? The truth is that it was rushed out in response to a reaction to the White Paper about the marginalisation of parents from school governance. Is it not the case that the White Paper on the forced academisation of schools is actually the back-door privatisation of the education system, and that the Government are not willing to tolerate opposition from parents or anyone who opposes that ideology?

[Lord Nash]

Actually, it was made absolutely clear in the White Paper that we would create a new expectation that every academy would put in place meaningful arrangements for engagement with all parents. We do not want to be prescriptive about the precise nature of that engagement, but of course a parent council may well be a good way of doing that. So far as privatisation is concerned, it is interesting to note that anyone involved in an academy or in a governance relationship with an academy cannot profit from their arrangement in that, whereas of course that is possible in a local authority-maintained school.