School Governors

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. It has been very instructive and helpful, and we have heard a lot of interesting contributions. I pay special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) for his tireless work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on education governance and leadership, on which he has worked hard in the past few years. There is no doubt that his questions have been helpful to many governing bodies. He has a wealth of experience, and he has skilfully covered many of the points that I planned to make.

I thank the National Governors Association for its work, and I completely agree with hon. Members who have expressed their thanks to governors who play such an important role in helping our schools, driving up school and pupil performance and ensuring that every child receives the best possible education. As has been mentioned, hundreds of thousands of volunteers serve as school governors. One of them is my mum, who is a school governor in Leeds. I can assure hon. Members that I receive regular feedback from the front line, at all times of the day and night, about what is going on in schools in Leeds. I am not without a direct feedback loop.

Being a school governor is not only an influential role; it also demands skill, time and energy. We very much appreciate those who volunteer. Governors have four sets of responsibilities. First, they have a strategic function, which many hon. Members have mentioned. Secondly, they use their skills and experience to ensure that the school is doing the right thing, that the school and the governing body run efficiently and effectively and that the school works to continually improve itself. A theme that we have heard in the debate is that school governing bodies need to be not just satisfied with how things are, but to train up and have continuous professional development for the school to improve.

There has been rather a lot of selective quoting of the Secretary of State’s governance speech. He praised many governors and acknowledged the important role that they play. He was describing what he thinks bad governance looks like, as opposed to what he thinks good governance looks like. His comment was certainly not about all governors or in any way meant to be detrimental to the many people who serve their local schools and are an important part of the local community.

I was pleased to hear that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) continues to support the academy programme, which was, of course, set up under the previous Government. I want to respond to the important points raised by him and the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on school accountability, and explain the Government’s approach.

In September 2012, we introduced new rules for Ofsted that make governance more central to how schools are assessed. In category 3 of a school requiring improvement, Ofsted may recommend an external review of governance. It can also give schools subsidised training for the chairman of the governors—something mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud. If a school is in unsatisfactory category 4, the Secretary of State or local authority may impose an interim executive board to replace the governing body, or it may be forced to become an academy with a sponsor, who may replace the school’s leadership, head and governors.

The essential philosophical difference between the Government and the Opposition is that we think that governing bodies need to be measured on the outcomes that they produce, rather than on inputs. Although I am a great supporter of training and professional development, it should not be a mandatory requirement, not least, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) mentioned, because it will impose costs on governing bodies. We do not know what the content will be. In my time, I have been on a fair few training courses that promised a great deal but did not deliver. That is not to say that I do not support training, but simply to say that it is a judgment that the chair of the governors and the school should exercise to ensure that its governing body has the right skills and experience. Rather than mandating the governing body to carry out things in a particular way, we should hold them accountable for the outcomes. They should take up the kind of professional development and training to ensure they have the right skills, as in the case raised by the right hon. Member for Exeter, to challenge the head teacher and understand the finances of the school. That is our broad approach.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I appreciate what the Minister says, but the performance of the school that I referred to was not bad enough for it to qualify under the new Ofsted rules that she has just outlined. The school was still improving and doing well enough. The problem was not the performance; the problem, basically, was corruption within the school. The worry that I have is that there is no local accountability in academies and that there is nothing anyone can do—except for her.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. What I am saying, though, is that the capability of governors and the outcomes of governance will be assessed as part of the Ofsted assessment. It is not just a matter of looking at the academic performance of the school; it is also about understanding what the governors are doing and how they are carrying out their duties.

[Kevin Brennan]

The Government have legislated so that some schools that are doing well academically do not have to be inspected. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) was making the point that that can mask corrupt practices and there will not be sufficient governance or training in place for governors to monitor that properly and nip it in the bud before it becomes a huge issue.

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Ofsted inspection will take place in due course, if the school performs below satisfactory levels. The reality is that, often—I could tell the right hon. Member for Exeter about similar cases in my constituency—poor performance on financials is related to poor overall school performance.

My colleague, Lord Hill, who leads on governors in the Department for Education, has already presented the awards for school clerk of the year, which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove, who also spoke about ensuring higher take-up. I understand that Lord Hill has committed to doing so again next year, which is good news for all of us.

I was interested the suggestion that we run a “becoming a governor” campaign and will take that back to Lord Hill for further discussion. We are, of course, happy to listen to suggestions from all parties in the House about how to improve standards of governance. As right hon. and hon. Members rightly said, there is a process for ensuring that all governing bodies attain the capability that we want, so that they can carry out their functions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud raised some other issues. His organisation’s work promoting skills in governing bodies is important. He is right; we need wider recruitment of governors, including business people who have financial skills that would help, as the right hon. Member for Exeter mentioned. My hon. Friend welcomed our efforts to relax the constraints on the size of governing bodies, so that we have governing bodies that are fit for purpose and offer the right scrutiny of what head teachers and schools are doing.

Being a governor can help build the individuals’ skills and experience. We have talked a lot about how the governors’ skills and experience can contribute to the schools’ performance, but we should also see it the other way round. I know a lot of people who have benefited from their time as a governor and have been able to build up their capability to understand how a school works and education policy, management and financial scrutiny.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central mentioned the platoons that we are seeking to support in society. In that regard, it is important that we retain governorship as a voluntary service, because it is a two-way process, with members of the community gaining experience as well as contributing to the future of a school and schools gaining from that experience of the community. The Government do not have any plans to pay governors and go away from the well-established principle of voluntary governance. There might be times—for example, if a school is in trouble and an interim executive board is needed for that failing school—when payment might be appropriate, but in the general run of things, we support a continuation of the voluntary governance principle.

[Tristram Hunt]

If the Government’s policy moves towards for-profit schools, which the former head of the No. 10 policy operation is proposing, does the Minister see paid-for governance as part of that?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Department has no plans to have for-profit schools, so the hon. Gentleman asks a hypothetical question.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned rigorous self-assessment of governing bodies. That is important. We must move away from the idea that the Government can mandate what schools and governing bodies should do to the idea governing bodies are responsible for building their capability.

I thank the right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to the debate and hope that I have answered their questions. This debate has helped highlight the importance of governors and governing bodies in schools. Often, when discussing schools policies, we end up talking about teachers, who are important in delivering an excellent education, but the structures that surround teaching and how we hold them to account are also important, as are the roles played by volunteers in our schools.

I am glad that we have had this debate. I will take up the issues raised with Lord Hill. If right hon. and hon. Members wish to write to me about further issues, I am happy to take those up, too.