Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the (a) Inspiring Governance and (b) Everyone on board programmes in increasing diversity on school governing boards.

Inspiring Governance is a service run by the charity, Education and Employers, that supports recruitment in school governance by matching those who wish to be governors to school vacancies. The department requires Education and Employers to meet targets to increase diversity on school governing boards. They are on track to register over 16% of people from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds this financial year. As at the 2011 census, 15% of the England population identified as being from a BAME background.

‘Everyone on Board’ is a campaign run jointly between Inspiring Governance and the National Governance Association and is not a government programme. The objective of this campaign is to increase the number of BAME and young people involved in governance.

Inspiring Governance report that over 19% of people registering and being placed into governance roles are from a BAME background, and people aged under 35 make up over 37% of registrations and over 46% of appointments.