School Governors

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure and honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I also welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). This might be her first performance as a Minister here—perhaps not. I am sure she will enjoy this one as much as she may have enjoyed the previous one. She has appeared before the Select Committee on Education and gave a fine performance. I am sure that we are in for a treat.

I asked for this debate because it concerns an important policy that should be deliberated. We need to think how we can adapt the role and recruitment of governors for the challenges ahead in the education system, which is still being reformed, quite rightly.

I want to thank all the governors who govern. We have nearly 300,000 possible governors; there are some vacancies at the moment. They meet regularly, often in relatively difficult circumstances, to deliberate on their schools and education policy. They must be thanked for all that they contribute to their communities and their schools. What I have to say about reforming governors and governance has nothing to do with the devotion of most governors to good practice and to the future of their individual schools.

Lord Hill of Oareford, one of the other Ministers in the Department for Education, said:

“The most important decision-making group in any school is the governing body… Governing bodies should set the overall strategic direction of a school, hold the head teacher to account and have a relentless focus on driving up standards but not get dragged into micromanaging the school or the minutiae of its day-to-day activities.”

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and I echo his words on the efforts of school governors. What does he think of the Secretary of State for Education’s description of school governors in his speech last July? He described them as

“Local worthies who see being a governor as a badge of status, not a job of work”.

[Neil Carmichael]

Out of a total number of several hundred thousand governors, there are bound to be some who are not as good as others and some who are there for reasons not necessarily those that we would all expect or salute. As I said, we have to congratulate and thank all governors generally speaking but note that there are bound to be some who do not rise to the challenge.

I return to Lord Hill’s quotation because I shall address the debate in that spirit. I have been a governor—whether I am a local worthy is another matter—in total for about 20 years in various organisations, such as further education colleges and primary and secondary schools, so I do have some experience. I dealt with a difficult situation quite recently where governance had been judged inadequate and the future of the head teacher became an issue. I am no stranger to controversy in school governance, as well the more reasonable activities of a governor.

I managed to persuade the Education Committee to conduct a full-scale inquiry on school governance, and I see that a member of that Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), is here. He will know that I was keen to do that, and I am pleased that we have an inquiry under way and that the first evidence session will take place in January.

I have also established an all-party group on school governance and leadership. The striking thing about that is that every time we have had a meeting we have had standing room only. There clearly is an appetite and interest in governance, governors and the policy around them. We have produced two publications: “Stronger Boards, Better Education” and “Who Governs the Governors?” We draw two significant conclusions from each of them. I will refer to the direction of travel in my remarks. The question of accountability is clearly at the core of who governs the governors. The question of skills versus stakeholders is clearly at the core of the quality of boards. I will set out those issues in more detail in due course.

As I have already said, there are a number of changes in the world of education, and the academies programme is clearly one of the most significant. It has significant implications for governance in several ways. I have referred to accountability, but the fact is that, as schools become more independent from local authorities, we should ask our governing system to fill the vacuum created. That is not an unfortunate vacuum—it is quite deliberate and quite right that schools are more independent and autonomous—but we must have a proper accountability system within schools.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Might it not have been a good idea, rather than to have had the vacuum and then work out how to fill it, to build the capacity first, so that there was no vacuum to fill? Would that not be a more consistent and sensible way to make public policy?

[Neil Carmichael]

As I have already quoted Lord Hill’s view of governance and as the Education Act 2011 included reference to governance and talked about governors and the membership of governing bodies, that is on the agenda. I am simply saying that we need to think more about it now, but it has not been ignored. That is the key point. The context is the changing role of schools in terms of autonomy and accountability with implications for local authorities.

The next thing we should talk about is the role of Ofsted, which has a significant responsibility to check what governors are up to with regard to the performance of schools. The sad fact is that the chief inspector of schools, Michael Wilshaw, has said that 40% of governing bodies are satisfactory or inadequate. Therefore, 60% are doing a good job, but too many are not doing a good-enough job and some are doing a fairly poor job. We cannot have that because it is inconsistent with our objective of ensuring that all schools are good schools and, as part of that process, that governing bodies play their part.

That brings me to the question of local authorities when schools start to fail. Are they acting quickly enough and do they take bold enough decisions? For example, do they introduce an interim executive board when necessary, or do they wait until it is too late? There is evidence that they do the latter. We need to test that out and be bold enough and courageous enough to admit it. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) is nodding in agreement.

There is no defying the facts, which are that on occasion local authorities do not act swiftly enough. Interim executive boards are quite useful tools. The interesting thing is that when they are introduced they are swift at dealing with some of the problems that they encounter, largely because they have focused skills and are not stakeholder-oriented. They focus on how to make a school better. In my experience, putting in place interim executive boards has produced encouraging results. The kind of governing body that we should consider for all schools in the future should be more like an interim executive board and less like the kind of boards that we sometimes have, which are too big, too cumbersome and too focused on stakeholder situations.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

The concept of a temporary executive board underlines the question of what exactly should be the role of the head teacher—we need clarity on this—which I had always thought to be executive, and the governing body, which I had always thought to be non-executive. In a sense, if we are talking about establishing an executive body, we must question whether the non-executive piece has done the right job. However, I am not sure whether we can equate the work of an executive temporary body with that of the governing body. I am interested to hear about the clarity that we will need between executive and non-executive bodies.

[Neil Carmichael]

That is an interesting question, but what I am trying to sketch out is the nature of the board itself. A board of 20 members and stakeholders, which effectively salutes the status quo and wants the status quo to be maintained, is a different thing from a smaller, more flexible and more responsive board that is charged with the task of improving the school. That is the distinction that I am trying to draw out, and we should have that in mind when we think about future governing bodies.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and on his work in the all-party group. It is encouraging that such issues are being discussed. I apologise, Mrs Main, that I will not be able to stay for the rest of the debate. We have a Minister appearing before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, so I will have to disappear shortly.

On the potential conflict, or clash of ideas, between stakeholder and skills, does the hon. Gentleman not feel that it is possible to stick with some form of stakeholder model but look at how we can ensure that the balance of skills is there as well, so that we cover both perspectives?

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I hope that he will join the all-party parliamentary group, as we need to replace an officer who is leaving.

[Dan Rogerson]

I have been contacted by Emma Knights from the National Governors Association, who has asked me to do that, and I have replied that I would be happy to do so. I might therefore see more of the hon. Gentleman in the future.

[Neil Carmichael]

I knew that the hon. Gentleman had been approached, which is why I felt at liberty to mention it and to encourage him to participate as vigorously as he obviously will. He is absolutely right about the stakeholder versus skills matter, but I believe that we need more skills and less emphasis on stakeholders. If we have too many stakeholders with vested interests, who are thinking about the status quo and not wanting to upset the apple cart, we are going down the route of not facing up to the big decisions. Governing bodies would be wiser to focus more on skills than on stakeholders, and that is the direction of travel that we should go in. The Government have already relaxed the rules about local authority governors, and we should go further and say, “Look, there is the emphasis on skills rather than the stakeholders.”

I have been the chairman of several governing bodies and a member of many, and I have seen stakeholders represent their groups and their communities extraordinarily well, but they do not necessarily ensure that the tough decisions are made in the school, and that is the distinction that I draw. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting the spotlight on that.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I agree with him about ensuring that governors who come on board have those skills, which they can use to hold the head teacher and the rest of the executive to account, but at the moment there are some 30,000 governor vacancies in the country. How do we go about filling them and ensuring that the people who are chosen have the right skills?

[Neil Carmichael]

That is a really good question, to which there are two answers. If you have everything corralled off into stakeholder groups, you are—are you not?—limiting the number of people who you can recruit. By definition, the pool is necessarily smaller. If you say that you must have parent governors or local authority governors—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I have waited quite a while before saying anything, but may I now issue a gentle reminder to the hon. Gentleman? Quite a few hon. Members seem to be speaking directly to him rather than through the Chair. I have not had any input into this matter, so I advise the hon. Gentleman to direct his comments through the Chair.

[Neil Carmichael]

That is a really important point, Mrs Main. I am suitably chastened.

If a governing body is recruiting from a relatively small pool, it will, by definition, be harder to recruit. That is my first point. My second point is whether we need to have 20 people sitting around the table. Should we not be looking at smaller governing bodies?

Governing bodies should recruit people from outside the education field as well, because it is imperative that schools have a better relationship with businesses, thereby improving career opportunities for their pupils. Part of a governing body’s role is to provide an interface between the school and future employment and further and higher education.

Let me now focus on the role of the chairman and the need for them to be properly trained and, possibly, remunerated. If we want someone who is going to spend quality time with the head teacher and who is able and willing to challenge them and to support them when they are implementing necessary changes, we need someone who has the commitment, the appropriate professional skills and, if necessary, the reward. I want to put on the table now the idea that we should be remunerating people. This is not a new idea, and it has been advanced by others, not least the chief inspector at Ofsted, and we need to consider it very carefully.

Another element of the role of the chair is whether or not they have been formally assessed. We need to introduce a system in which assessment is rigorous. We do not want a few old friends gathering around for a cup of coffee, slapping one another on the back and saying, “Hey, you have done a really good job.”

The other key person in a governing body is the clerk, and they must be someone who is capable of taking notes, ensuring that meetings run properly and advising the governing body on its statutory responsibilities and any other legal implications of its actions. I have seen too many governing bodies struggle without such advice and make inappropriate and sometimes quite useless decisions.

An issue that I have already raised in relation to one of the reports is whether, when parents have lost confidence in the school governors, they should be able to dismiss the governors en masse. That would be a final accountability mechanism that was not necessarily used often, but which was an ultimate threat. Such a mechanism would ensure that governing bodies were mindful of the need to interface properly with the parent body.

Those issues are important with respect to the chair and other aspects. On the structure of governance, I want to focus on three areas. First, it would be sensible to think in terms of more federal structures for governing bodies. The evidence is—this certainly shows up in the academies programme—that where we have governing bodies looking after more than one school, the likelihood of outstanding schools being developed is much higher. That is a statistical fact and one that we need to note. However, it is also important that we bear it in mind that good schools can spread best practice to the schools that need to improve, and through a federal or a partnership model of governance, that might happen more often and more readily. It seems to me that that is a direction of travel that has already started with the academies programme, but it should be promoted.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that with small rural schools, including primary schools, that sometimes have particular challenges in attracting sufficient governors, the model he described—a single governing body for multiple schools—could be especially important?

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very astute question, and the answer is an emphatic yes. I believe that smaller schools in rural areas would benefit from one good governing body running two or three schools, and we should also look at vertical models, by which I mean secondary schools with feeder schools and not just primary schools. To some extent, it is horses for courses, but we must put this idea on the agenda as a direction of travel to ensure that we get better governance for schools, including those that he mentioned.

[Anne Marie Morris]

I assume that in all this discussion my hon. Friend still recognises that there is a real value in the governors’ relationship with and understanding of the school. The point, probably, is to look at all the players and ensure that they all play their part appropriately, because it would be unfortunate if the governance structure became so dislocated that it became a form of Ofsted. I do not think that is what even my hon. Friend wishes to see.

[Neil Carmichael]

Absolutely, my hon. Friend is right. It is not wise to say that we will go in completely the opposite direction. There is a balance to be struck, which is that where there are neighbouring schools with common interests and common issues that would benefit from a federal or partnership model of governance, that model would be good and should be welcomed. However, where there is a school that clearly does not fit that description, that type of model would not work. It is up to governing bodies to think that matter through. I am simply saying that the federal or partnership model of governance is one that we should promote where it is useful and relevant.

The second aspect of structure that I want to talk about is size, which my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire touched on. In many cases, a governing body of 20 or more governors is simply unnecessary. Actually, such a body quite often ends up with just a core number of governors playing the decisive role, and once one of that core number goes the rest are bereft of the necessary skill and expertise, and the governing body can fall apart. That relates to the recruitment problem. As we have heard, about 30,000 governor posts are still vacant, so it would be wise to consider relaxing the rules on the size of governing bodies and having fewer, but more focused and more skills-orientated, governors on a governing body.

I have already talked about the importance of governors challenging head teachers. It is absolutely right that head teachers should be challenged, but they should be challenged constructively. However, it is also really important that we have governing bodies that govern strategically, focusing on the long-term interests of the school and its pupils. It is necessary to think in terms of formulating a governing body that genuinely has that capacity to be strategic—to think about the school plan and what it can do to push forward the aims and objectives of that plan, and any other plan that is appropriate. Those are three areas of structure that need to be considered.

[Rehman Chishti]

On the numbers, I hear my hon. Friend say that 20 governors is too many. Are we looking at around 10 or 12 as the appropriate figure, if those 10 or 12 governors have the skills and in-depth training to hold the head teacher and others to account?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael]

In one of the publications that I referred to, the all-party group certainly came up with 12 as the ideal number. Having 12 governors means having a reasonably good chance of getting a good cross-section of skills, and there would also be a sensible way of dealing with succession planning, which also needs to be considered when we discuss governors and the future structure of governing bodies.

One thing that the all-party group has done is produce a list of 20 relevant questions for governors to ask themselves. We went through a fairly exhaustive process. We had lots of governors in one of the Committee Rooms of the House, talking about the questions that should be asked by governors. They are the questions that we want to encourage more governing bodies to ask of their head teachers and of themselves.

One of those questions is:

“Do we engage in good succession planning?”

Another is:

“Do we carry out a regular 360 review of the chair’s performance?”

Still another is:

“Does our strategic planning cycle drive the governing body’s activities and agenda setting?”

Obviously, there are loads of other questions, but formulating these questions—and, indeed, the other work of the all-party group—has been useful in sketching out ways in which governing bodies might like to consider testing themselves, because we need more rigorous self-assessment by governing bodies.

Members will be pleased to hear that I am nearly finished. I want to finish off by asking a few key questions that are relevant to this debate. The first is, how do we make school governors focus on school improvement, based on a proper understanding of data performance? That question is a combination of wanting to ensure that we have school governors who challenge the performance of the head teacher and who are able and willing to take tough and rigorous decisions, but who are also capable of understanding, analysing and drawing appropriate conclusions from the amazing amount of data and information that fly around.

I have already touched on the second question, but I will repeat it as a sort of finale: are the governing bodies that we have too unwieldy, how do we ensure that we move from a stakeholder situation towards a skills-based governing body, and can we enhance the professionalism of school governing bodies? I want to emphasise the idea of ensuring that the chairmen of governing bodies are properly trained, properly engaged by the head teacher—and vice versa—and remunerated in a way that is consistent with their responsibilities and with the skills that we need to recruit for such posts.

[Rehman Chishti]

Regarding skills and ability, local authorities such as mine set a minimum training requirement that governors have to do, linked to compulsory aspects of the overall training scheme. Does my hon. Friend agree that that type of training by certain local authorities, in partnership with governing bodies—for example, the partnership between my local authority and Medway governors—works well?

[Neil Carmichael]

Yes, I do. There are good examples of training schemes and the National Governors Association—a good organisation to which I pay tribute— also does a huge amount of good training work. However, we must ensure that governors and governing bodies recognise that there is a strong need for governors to be trained, because some governors seem to think that training is something that people do only if they are bored, not because it is necessary. We need to promote the training of governors.

We are engaged in a real set of reforms in the world of education, which is an opportunity to look at governors and governance in a way that reflects our understanding of the new autonomous and independent approach that schools should have, as well as the fact that we want to drive up standards, wherever it is necessary to do so. We want not to waste time, but to get on with things to ensure that we have the appropriate leadership, impetus and toolkits to deliver the job.

I am not being prescriptive. I am simply raising issues that should be on the agenda to inform our discussions on changes to school governance. We should at all times—this is an appeal to the Minister and her colleagues —mention governance, underline its importance, encourage people to become governors and recognise that school leadership through effective governance is what we need as part of the mechanism to ensure that our schools continue to improve.