Issue - meetings

To consider revisions to the procedure for the appointment of Authority Governors to educational establishments. 

The Committee considered proposed revisions to the procedure for the appointment of Authority Governors to educational establishments.

The requirement to make Authority Governor appointments was a statutory obligation on all Local Authorities. The current Appointment Process had been approved by the Governance and Constitution Committee on 3^rd November 2008.

Cheshire East’s Authority Governor vacancy level had been very high when the Council was established.  Over the last eighteen months, through the application of the approved process, this level had fallen to a level below the national average. Large numbers of vacancies led to a risk of weaker Governing Bodies and Headteachers being unsupported or insufficiently challenged in their role. The revised procedure would make the process more robust and more transparent, particularly in relation to the appointment of governors in schools in the Authority’s Improving Outcomes Programme.

The need for transparency and effectiveness in the process had been increased by the publication of the recent Education Bill which, if enacted unamended, would remove the requirement for schools to have an Authority Governor position. If the Local Authority wished to retain a representation on school Governing Bodies it was essential that schools were satisfied that the appointment process was transparent and effective, and was supplying them with valuable governors.

RESOLVED

That the revised procedure for the appointment of Authority Governors to school governing bodies in Cheshire East as set out in Annexe A to the report be approved subject to the following amendments:

1.      where there are two or more competing nominations for a vacancy at a primary school and one nominee is a local ward member for the ward in which the school is situated, the local ward member shall be appointed;

2.      where there are two or more competing nominations for a vacancy at a secondary school and one nominee is a local ward member for a ward served by the secondary school, the local ward member shall be appointed;

3.      where there are two or more nominations of local ward members in either case above, those members shall decide among themselves which one of them shall be appointed; in the event that agreement cannot be reached, all such nominations shall be considered equally alongside any others against the agreed criteria; and

4.      nominations by local ward members where they themselves are not the nominee shall be considered equally with other nominations against the agreed criteria.