Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons eight of the 13 governors from Park View Academy resigned within five months of its transfer to academy status.

Governors may resign at any time for their own reasons; they do not need to tell the Department for Education or their fellow governors why.

The Department's preference is for small and manageable, skill-based strategic governing bodies as these are more effective, and it will normally recommend this when an academy trust is first formed. The governance arrangements for an academy trust are set out in its articles of association.

Park View Educational Trust has told the Department that there was a need to rationalise the governing body to ensure it could operate more effectively, and in order to comply with the Department's preferred model when other academies joined the trust to form a multi-academy trust.

We are aware of the serious allegations made in relation to some local authority schools and academies in Birmingham. Park View Academy has recently been inspected by Ofsted, and officials from the Department have also visited the school. We will not hesitate to take firm action if the high standards and requirements expected of schools are not being met – in particular, where we become aware of issues of concern in an academy we will move quickly to resolve these. It would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.