Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many school governors there are in (a) Manchester Gorton constituency, (b) the North West and (c) England.

Governance records are stored on ‘Get Information About Schools’ (GIAS). This is a self-service website that schools are able to complete and update. As school governance roles are filled by volunteers, it is not mandatory for them to register their details on GIAS, and the Department holds 183,784 active governance records. The National Governance Association (NGA) estimate the number of school governors and trustees in England to be 250,000.

There were 276 active governance records for schools in the Manchester Gorton constituency on GIAS as of February 1 2021.

There were 25,994 active governance records for schools in the North West region on GIAS as of February 2021.

There were 183,784 active governance records for schools in England on GIAS as of February 2021.

The Department does not hold data on the ethnicity of school governors in England, but findings from the latest NGA annual school governance survey indicated that 4% of governors and trustees within their membership are from an ethnic minority background. In addition, 18% of volunteers who signed up with the Department-funded Inspiring Governance governor recruitment programme, and 20% of those matched to school governor roles by the programme, were from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background.