£1m to help recruit high-calibre governors

A new £1m fund has been announced by schools minister, Lord Nash to try and bring more highly-skilled governors into schools (see original announcement here). The funding is intended to support a new partnership between SGOSS – Governors for Schools and the Education and Employers Taskforce, to recruit more high-calibre governors. Some of the money will be used to develop a new online tool that will allow schools to search for suitable volunteers.

Improving school governance is a key element of the governments education strategy. With schools continuing to gain increased autonomy, the importance of the role of school governor is increasing along with it. Schools that get into trouble are inevitably those where the governing body lacks the leadership or skills to sufficiently challenge school management when issues first occur. The announcement, in February, that Durham Free School is set to close following an Ofsted report highlighting poor leadership emphasises the point. Furthermore, with the announcement of further free school openings, governance will continue to be a hot topic within education and it is likely more scrutiny and regulation will follow.