The body politic

Effective governance is critical for successful schools. Nick Sladden advises that governing bodies should review their accountability arrangements to ensure they observe best practice

It is the responsibility of every school governing body to ensure that it is composed of an appropriate number of individuals with the effective breadth and depth of expertise. Having effective governance arrangements – due processes and procedures – has become increasingly important across public, private and voluntary sectors, including independent schools.

Against this trend of striving to achieve the highest standards of governance, there is evidence from the past few years to suggest that boards are becoming “rationalised”, with lower governor numbers. This has concentrated key decisions among a smaller number of individuals. Inevitably, this means more demands are now being placed on 21st century independent school governors.

The new era for governance
The growth of the internet and information in the public domain increases the levels of accountability and transparency required for schools. Helpfully, the internet in turn has itself been a valuable source of information for governors to find practical help, tools and best practice guidance on improving governance arrangements within their own schools.

A model of good practice
One example is the National Governance Hub for England, which has many useful tools and templates (www.governancehub.org.uk). The Governance Hub is funded by a ten-year government initiative and its biggest impact to date has been the publication in June 2005 of Good Governance: A Code for the Voluntary and Community Sector (the Code). The Code was developed for use in the voluntary and community sectors and has become increasingly prevalent, particularly among charities.

Although adoption of the Code by boards of governors is voluntary, it is intended to reflect best practice. The Code itself is principles-based. Organisations that adhere to these principles should state as much in their annual reports. The governors’ report would be a suitable place for schools to make such a disclosure.

Arguably, any adoption of the Code by schools will help to show that good governance arrangements are in place and should assist in demonstrating accountability to society at large.

Well defined
At the very heart of the Code, a definition of governance is offered as: “The systems and processes concerned with ensuring the overall direction, effectiveness, supervision and accountability of an organisation”. Schools need to develop systems and processes to address the seven main principles underlining the Code, which are as follows:

1 board leadership;

2 the board in control;

3 the high performance board;

4 board review and renewal;

5 board delegation;

6 board and trustee integrity; and

7 board openness.

As well as following the principles of the Code, a board needs to ensure that it possesses the right mix of skills, experience and qualities to make it effective. The starting point in building an effective board is to review the attributes of existing governors.

Nick Sladden is a partner in Baker Tilly and head of their charities and education group in the South. Nick can be contacted on nick.sladden@bakertilly.co.uk

Return to Governance