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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

A Call for ReforMATion in School Governance



The recently published White Paper Education, Excellence, Everywhere has made clear the government's determination that all schools become academies by 2022, with most having to join Multi Academy Trusts. In one way we're just going to have to get on with it and I advocate a pragmatic approach here. But Parliament's Education Committee has just launched an inquiry into MATs and one area that they'll be looking into is, "The balance of decision-making at the individual school level and at the chain level, and the appropriateness of formal governance structures employed". As I see it that is the big problem with the Multi Academy Trust model of school governance. The balance of powers is too one sided in favour of MAT boards. This may be summed up in terms the wording found in the November 2015 Governance Handbook, which reflects the current legislation covering MATs:
A MAT board is accountable for all of the academies within the trust. However, it can choose to delegate governance functions to local governing bodies or LGBs... It is the decision of the trustees about which, if any, governance functions they delegate to LGBs or other committees. (4.2.2 Multi Academy Trusts, 16 & 17.)
 LGBs are little more than committees of the MAT board and the powers delegated to LGBs or even their very existence are in the gift of the the MAT board. The situation is akin to governance in a maintained school or stand-alone academy. The full governing board may choose to delegate certain powers to committees, and then decide to get rid of one committee and distribute its powers to others, or exercise them itself. That is fair enough when it comes to a governing board of a local school reviewing  its Scheme of Delegation and governance structures, but it amounts to a serious loss of autonomy for LGBs in a MAT. Even if the MAT may accord DevoMax powers to LGBs on joining the group, it may later reverse that decision and turn its LGBs into focus groups or abolish them altogether.  

I would like to see the legislation reformed so as to accord certain inalienable rights to local governing boards in relation to the MAT board. Those rights would also entail binding responsibilities for a LGB. The points below are not intended to serve as a complete Scheme of Delegation, but set out a number of underlying principles for consideration: 

The rights of LGBs in a MAT

1. LGBs should have the right to exist and not be unilaterally abolished by the MAT board.
2. LGBs should have the right to exercise the core functions of governance in relation to their local school: a) Set the school's vision, ethos and strategy. b) Hold the Headteacher to account. c) Ensure value for money. A body that does not exercise these core functions cannot be said to be governing their school in any meaningful sense.   
3. LGBs should have the right to equal or at least equitable representation on the MAT board.
4. As far as distributed powers of governance are concerned, no change should be made to the MAT Scheme of Delegation without the agreement of a majority of constituent LGBs.
5. The MAT board should report to an annual LGB conference where local governors would have an opportunity to hold the MAT board to account for its actions.

The responsibilities of LGBs in a MAT

1. LGBs will account to the MAT board for its school's progress against a set of agreed Key Performance Indicators and operate on the basis of earned rather than absolute autonomy. 
2. Where an LGB is not giving its school the strategic leadership it requires, the MAT board may suspend its 'earned autonomy'. In that case the MAT board may intervene to direct the LGB's actions up to and including changing the leadership and composition of the local board. 
3. In fulfilling its core functions the LGB will oversee the effectiveness of its school's leadership and management, and monitor measures taken to improve the quality of teaching. It will scrutinise pupil outcomes, and ensure actions are taken to secure the personal development, welfare and safety of pupils. The LGB will report to the MAT board on its work as required so the board is apprised of the strengths and weaknesses of member schools and can take action as appropriate.
4. While ensuring compliance with the MAT-wide vision, standards and policies, the LGB will safeguard its school's distinctive ethos and character. 
5. The LGB will engage with key stakeholders, pupils. parents, staff and members of the local community so that the MAT board is made aware of their views and is able to take them into account when considering its strategic priorities.

I believe that redistributing the powers of governance as outlined above would make for a more effective self-improving school-led system. Harris Academies have 'authoritative' LGBs that provide strong strategic leadership and robust accountability to individual academies. E-ACT notoriously abolished its LGBs. No prizes for guessing which 'chain' is doing better when it comes to improving pupil outcomes. Even in MAT-land, governance by appropriately skilled-up and fired-up local stakeholders has its place.

Reform of the legislation that accorded clear rights and responsibilities to LGBs in relation to MAT boards would also help to allay the fears of governors and Headteachers who are reluctant to contemplate joining a MAT because of the loss of autonomy that would entail. If local freedom was respected as well as the power of collective action harnessed in MATs, that would make joining one a more enticing prospect. If a ReforMATion of school governance isn't forthcoming, the next best thing would be for schools to academise together under an Umbrella Trust, but who knows whether we would be allowed the autonomy to do that? 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My thoughts on the above:

Rights of LGB:
1. Agree
2. (a) In consultation with the Board so that there is some synergy amongst all the schools. (b) This function should rest with the "line manager", the CEO. (c) Agree. LGB should ensure VFM for the school budget.
3. This may make the MAT board very big if there are quite a few schools in the MAT. For example, if a MAT has 25 schools then that means according to your model there will be 25 LGB representatives on the Board plus others that the Board may want. This makes the Board too big, in my opinion. This may work for smaller MATs.
4. In normal circumstances this may work but what happens if the school isn't performing well and the LGB is not functioning well? Its difficult to imagine that a LGB which is part of the problem would agree to be disbanded.
5. I don't mind the idea of an annual conference where the Board discusses plans for the next year with the LGB but I don't think this can be viewed as a forum where the LGB holds the Board to account because its the Board which holds the LGB to account.

The responsibilities of LGBs in a MAT:
1-5. These I broadly agree with.

Interesting times ahead!

Guy Davies said...

Hi Naureen,

By way of response...

Rights

2.(a) If a MAT developed organically, the first thing would be to agree a common vision to which all schools could sign up. Or if a school was looking to join a pre-existing MAT it should consider whether it could buy into their vision. But individual schools within the MAT should also retain their own vision statements, as a secondary school's vision would look different to that of an infant school's and a church school's (for e.g.) would reflect its faith-based ethos. It would be the job of LGBs to set their school's distinctive vision that also coheres with that of the MAT.(b) Holding HT to account broader than performance management. LGBs should hold HT to account for overall progress of school, outcomes for different types of pupils, attendance rates etc. Don't agree that HT PM should be ceded to CEO/Exec HT with no LGB involvement. See paras 9&10 of this post for my take on this:
http://exiledpreacher.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/school-governance-as-we-know-it-is.html.
3. I'm with Lord Nash on the ideal size and geographical coverage of MATs 'not more spread out than it takes to travel from one school to another within half a lunch break', not Sir David Carter's 'wider still and wider' approach. My preference would be for all schools in a small town and its surrounding villages, or a district in a big town/city to form a 6 or 7 school MAT. That way all could be equally represented on the MAT board. In the case of larger MATs it could be equitable representation according to school size, with 1 representative for a secondary, 1 for two large primary schs, 1 for three smaller primary schs etc.
4. See 2. under Responsibilities. The MAT's power to intervene in a failing LGB would be built into the SofD from the start. But the board would be unable to change the SofD to remove powers from all LGBs without the consent of the majority of constituent LGBs. If a change proposed by the MAT board was reasonable, a failing LGB would not be able to veto it if an overall majority of LGBs were in favour.
5. I believe in an element of mutual accountability. What if MAT board was less than the sum of its parts and was holding the MAT back?

Responsibilities

At least we agree there!

Thanks for your comments,

Guy

Guy Davies said...

From Naureen: https://governingmatters.wordpress.com/

Good to get a debate going. For no 5 above I'd say that this is where Members need to step in. The role and responsibilities of Members need to be made clear and perhaps made slightly stronger. I don't know if Members do step in when things go wrong. This needs looking at, I think.