Agenda item

Purpose of the report:

To provide an overview of the work undertaken by Surrey County Council and partners to support governors and governing bodies in Surrey maintained nurseries and schools and academies.

Witnesses:

Julie Iles, Cabinet Member for All-Age Learning

Liz Mills, Director – Education, Learning and Culture

Jane Winterbone, Assistant Director – Education

James Durrant, School Governor at Oakwood School

Doris Neville-Davies, Member of the Executive Committee of the Surrey Governance Association and School Governor at Cleves School, Weybridge

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    A Member asked what the main challenges faced by school governors were and what support was in place to enable governors to overcome these challenges. The Cabinet Member responded that the role of school governor was a demanding position that placed many responsibilities and a significant workload on the volunteers undertaking the role: including the requirement to keep up to date with legislative changes, the variety of skills required of governing bodies, and holding schools to account regarding the discharge of their duties owed to looked-after children and children with additional needs. The Cabinet Member highlighted that governors freely volunteer their time in the best interests of their school communities. A school governor commented that there was a wide range of places from which school governors could access information and support, and that, before reading the report, she had been unaware that support from Cognus was available, and asked how governors were made aware of such support. The Director assured members that the Service was constantly trying to improve the accessibility of information and support available to governors.

2.    A Member queried whether academy schools received the same level of support as local authority funded schools. The Director explained that the council’s statutory duties were different for non-maintained schools, and that the council had a responsibility to appoint local authority governors to community schools. The council, however, went beyond its statutory responsibilities by endeavouring to provide accessible governance information and support to schools of all types, as part of a holistic approach to maintaining strength in  Surrey’s entire school system.

3.    A Member who was a governor of an independent school commented that he had never received governance information from the council in that role. The Assistant Director explained that all independent schools received a weekly information bulleting from the Schools Relationships Team, but it was then the responsibility of the schools to disseminate that information. The Assistant Director offered to add the Member to the bulletin’s circulation list. A member of the Surrey Governance Association (SGA) asked if it would be possible for such information to disseminated directly to representatives of governing bodies, as the council maintained a database of governors.

4.    A Vice-Chairman asked whether governors would like to receive support  in any additional areas. The Cabinet Member explained that webinars provided throughout the COVID-19 pandemic had been a positive additional resource and were well attended by governing bodies; subsequently, recordings of the briefings had been made available for retrospective viewing. The council was working with the SGA to increase the schedule of availability through the Schools Alliance for Excellence (SAfE) in order to make information more accessible. The Assistant Director added that a number of webinars had been scheduled for the following school term and these would focus on usual governance business, rather than purely on COVID-19 related issues. At the webinars, governors could provide feedback on topics they wanted to be covered in future sessions and SAfE was receptive to these requests – the next webinar was to look at finance, as this had been requested at a previous session.

5.    A Member stated that, out of the 5,600 school governor posts in Surrey, approximately 400 (1 in 14 governors) attended the webinars. The Member questioned how those who did not attend were communicated and engaged with. The Cabinet Member informed the Select Committee that she met with Cognus on a termly basis to discuss these matters and the importance of governors keeping their training records up to date. The Director stated that the Service was in its second year of working with Cognus; this organisation was not well known, and the Service would be seeking feedback for how they could improve joint working. The Assistant Director stated that the recordings of webinars could be viewed retrospectively, so viewing figures could be higher than the 1 in 14 who attend the live sessions.

6.    A Member commented that SAfE had proved invaluable during the pandemic and that they were pleased with the level of support provided. However, in cases of children with safeguarding needs, when a timely response regarding the delivery of social support was required, school governors lacked support. The Member asked what was being done to improve support for governors with this challenge and improve the council’s response times. The Director replied that there was an embedded family resilience system across children’s social care. The Children’s Single Point of Access (C-SPA) was the first point of contact for all concerns regarding children and where safeguarding concerns should be escalated. Schools had a statutory responsibility to lead in respect of early help and understanding their pupils’ needs. Nevertheless, where further support was required, the Safeguarding Partnership would consider requests for support and connect them to interventions appropriate to the level of need. Governors had an important role in ensuring such arrangements were in place in schools; to help them in this role, Strictly Education (with whom the council had a non-compete clause in this respect) offered training on safeguarding and inclusion to lead governors of safeguarding. In the upcoming school term, council officers would be leading on the provision of training on trauma-informed practice and looked-after children via a webinar hosted jointly by SAfE and the Head Teacher of Surrey’s Virtual School. Online training through the Safeguarding Partnership and Designated Safeguarding Lead Network meetings was also available and led by the Education Safeguarding Team. Questions from head teachers or governors were encouraged to ensure that governors received the support with safeguarding queries.

7.    A Member expressed concern over the number of sources of information and support for governors. They asked how the council intended to provide a more strategic approach to improve the current fragmented system of governance support. The Director submitted that the fragmented system of governance support was due to the fragmented English education system, and informed the Select Committee that, in Surrey, there was a review of governance arrangements underway in order to ascertain how arrangements could be streamlined to improve access of information for governors. The Member welcomed the review and requested that  its outcome be reported to the Select Committee.

8.    A Member asked what was being done to recruit school governors. The Director stated that the difficulties of recruitment were largely caused by the increasing responsibilities, time commitments and level of accountability placed upon school governors. The recruitment methodology and campaigns were to be improved over the coming year and the Leaders in Governance programme was ongoing. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lack of face-to-face meetings could further change the recruitment landscape. The Cabinet Member informed the Select Committee that she met with Cognus on a termly basis to discuss governor vacancies; the skillset of a person put forward to be a governor and recommendations from associated contacts were all considered during the recruitment process.

9.    A Member asked how many school governor vacancies there were. The Assistant Director agreed to provide this information to the Select Committee.

10.  A Member asked what was being done to increase the diversity of school governing boards. The Director agreed that there was a lack of diversity across Surrey’s education system and work needed to be undertaken to increase workforce diversity and ensure that all children felt represented in their schools. Conversations regarding this issue had taken place with school leadership councils and SAfE, and the council had extended the offer of unconscious bias training to schools. The Director assured the Select Committee that encouraging greater diversity in the work force would be a priority over the coming year.

11.  A Member asked whether head teachers who sat on their school’s board of governors had a conflict of interest making it difficult for governing boards to hold the head teachers to account and what advice was given to governors in this regard.  The Director stated that it was important that a governing body held head teachers to account and had real oversight of the operation of school whilst avoiding conflicts of interest. The Assistant Director stated that an effective head teacher would help a governing body to be strategic in its role in order to avoid generating a conflict of interest. It was critical that governors could triangulate information received from different sources to corroborate information provided by head teachers, to avoid over-relying on the latter. A member of the SGA stated that head teachers had the right to be governors and governing bodies had a duty to challenge Head Teacher.

Actions:

                                          i.    For the Assistant Director, Education to share the number of school governor vacancies with the Select Committee.

                                        ii.    For the Director – Education, Learning and Culture to report the outcome of the review of school governance arrangements in Surrey to the Select Committee.