The new Labour government has been urged to back a national school governor recruitment drive after governance leaders said the previous administration had found cash for it before the election was called.
Speaking on a panel at the Festival of Education, the National Governance Association (NGA) co-chief executive Emma Knights said that before the general election was called, Baroness Barran had told the NGA that the Department for Education had found some money.
“They said they had enough [money] to run a good national campaign,” said Ms Knights.
“The whole time I’ve been at the NGA there’s been no national marketing.
“The last government said to us that they had found some money to do that. And then called the election early. We were actually having conversations about how it would work.”
Ms Knights said the NGA hopes that if Bridget Phillipson is appointed as new education secretary, she will allow the DfE to fund a national governor recruitment campaign.
Challenges recruiting governors
School boards have been facing challenges in recruiting governors.
Back in 2021, an NGA report investigating governor recruitment found a lack of open and transparent recruitment was a big barrier to underrepresented groups joining governor and trustee boards.
The report also concluded transforming recruitment practices can have a significant impact on this.
Ms Knights said the NGA has been calling for a national governor recruitment campaign since the publication of the report.
“It’s frustrating we had to lobby hard for three years to convince the last government to agree to this,” she added.
Funding ended for connecting volunteers with schools
Earlier this year, the DfE decided to end the funding of Inspiring Governance, a recruitment programme, from the end of September 2024.
At the time, the NGA said the end of the funding will mean governing boards “are left entirely to their own devices” because funding for governance recruitment, development and training will have all been removed.
Writing for Tes in March after the end of Inspiring Governance was announced, NGA co-chief executive Emma Balchin said it had urgently appealed to the DfE and any future government to fund governance support.
The Inspiring Governance programme helped volunteers interested in serving as governors connect with schools. The programme aimed to increase the number of volunteers looking to become governors and increase diversity on governing boards.
More than three-quarters of respondents (77 per cent) to NGA’s last annual survey said recruiting and retaining governors was a challenge for them - up from 63 per cent the year before.
People under 40 are particularly underrepresented on school governing boards - 91 per cent of respondents to NGA’s survey said they were over 40.
The DfE was contacted for comment.
