Lord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Watts's debates with the Department for Education
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Nash
It is a consistent system. We feel that the academy system is the best way to give freedom to the front line and to enable heads to recruit, train, retain, develop and deploy staff. Many freedoms and other benefits come from being an academy and part of a family of schools in a multi-academy trust.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us how many vacancies exist for school governors? It is my experience that many schools are having real difficulty in recruiting governors.
Lord Nash
I cannot give the noble Lord an exact figure but he is absolutely right that we are always looking for school governors. We have an active programme with a school governors’ one-stop shop, and for inspiring and recruiting future governors. I have already referred to the active programme with employers on recruiting governors. We also have the very successful Academy Ambassadors programme, which has recruited 200 pro bono people from the professions, business and charities to sit on the boards of multi-academy trusts.