Are we at the start of dismantling the largest group of volunteers in the country?

After a torrid time in politics for the last three years it’s likely we will have a modicum of stability for the next five. This stability offers the opportunity to do real good for the wider education system. With planning, consensus and reference to research it could herald a truly positive change. Problem is if we have top down reform driven by political dogma and ideology in a ‘one size fits all’ manner it could be horrendous for many schools.

Education is too valuable to our society and economy to be manipulated for political ends, irrespective of the party. Think of the change to comprehensive education in the early 70s. For a start it’s never become universal and yet when done well it opened opportunities to many.

Almost every society with universal education has an accountability and scrutiny layer similar to school governance in England and Wales. Most are people paid to do this; few have similar levels of legal responsibility.

Governance today is part way morphed between the maintained and academy sectors; both are state funded education. The majority of schools are still in the maintained sector, the majority of children in the academy sector. This diversity has provoked wholly avoidable misunderstanding about who does what role and their responsibilities.

Broadly speaking (please bear with me because I’m not against academies and some do fantastic work) there are generic issues with the academy or multi academy trust (MAT) structure. In some MATs it’s very clear that the people within it don’t understand their role and this causes serious issues for organisation stability and school success.

MATs typically have three governance layers, but legally they only have to have two. MAT members oversee the trust board and appoint many board members. In faith MATs members are often appointees of religious organisations and have a mandate to appoint similarly religious people to the board. The trust board are the core of governance in MATs and are the group who have executive responsibility for the whole trust and every school within it. Their primary responsibility is for the trust. I so wish that when the MAT structure was planned a different name had been chosen for the local layer of governance. Many MATs are now moving away from ‘local governance’ and refer to this group as an advisory council or committee. The local layer have no statutory or legal powers or responsibilities. That means local links and representation in school leadership from the last hundred years are gone. Please don’t shout at me, I know many MATs are great at this but they have no legal compulsion to engage locally and when this is done badly it causes great disquiet.

There are holes in the system about how MATs have to behave and this is increasingly causing parents concern. Many MATs do not publish the name of the chief executive officer (CEO) and do not link them into the school complaints policy. This curtails transparency and breaks the community to school link as the school cannot make decisions which rest with the CEO. The physical distance between the MAT and the school can also deter accountability. This disconnect between school leadership and community/parents has implications for both child and school success. Research has shown how vital parent and family support is to child success.

Maintained schools are not perfect but they are compelled to have parents, community and staff as part of their governance. This collaborative and local approach makes school an integral part of the community. The best MATs do this because they see the value but they have no legal compulsion to behave this way. It’s the old chestnut of what an organisation should, may or could do.

In short what I’m suggesting is that if the academy structures as mandated are rolled out to all schools we will see a reduction of governance from approximately 250,000 governors to about 25,000 trustees and members. This will also sever a long standing legal link between schools and their context. I hope that if the system evolves by drawing on the best from each sector there will be an equivalence of value to every child’s education.

 

Martin Matthews B.A( Hons) MA, FRSA, PGCE, PRINCE2, ITIL,National leader of Governance.