School Governors: Training

HL Deb 02 December 1987 vol 490 cc1049-51

Baroness Young

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the training of school governors.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Education and Science (Baroness Hooper)

My Lords, the Education (No. 2) Act 1986 requires local education authorities to ensure that suitable training is available free of charge. The Government are currently supporting, through education support grants, pilot projects in 10 local authorities on the development of governor training strategies and intend to support further work with the object of ensuring that appropriate and good quality training should be available for all school governors.

Baroness Young

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very helpful reply. I am sure that she recognises the importance of training in order to attract the right people to this important task. Can she say what resources are likely to be available to local education authorities, on which much of this work will fall, as well as what, if any, resources the Government are setting aside for the purpose?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for her supplementary question I reiterate that the duty to provide basic training lies with the local education authorities, which are expected within their current funding arrangements to provide this continuing service. However, we as a Government are currently conducting a total review of existing provision.

As a preliminary step the Government have already commissioned from the Educational Management Information Exchange a study of existing methods and materials used by local education authorities. The report of the study should be available early next year. It will provide an assessment of what exists and indicate where further work is needed. The Government can then consider what further resources need be made available for such further development work; they are likely to include a wider use of education support grants. The Government will also be providing a grant to help the National Association of Governors and Managers to develop its operation and expand its activities.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn

My Lords, is the Minister aware that when the 1986 Education Bill was going through this House a number of us from all sides of the House advocated a national guideline to local education authorities? Is she further aware that because there are no national guidelines at the present time some local authorities are going to town and really training governors while others are not bothering at all? When the Minister is in a position to see the pilot study will she or the department introduce a national training course for governors?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, we are well aware of the fact that there are very good practices conducted by local education authorities in this area. Indeed a number of courses are also run which are attended by school governors on their own resourcing. Certainly the Government will consider carefully the benefits which have been gained by those local education authorities that are running pilot projects and consider the next steps to take as a result of that evaluation.

Baroness Seear

My Lords, will the noble Baroness also hear in mind, especially if opting out takes place, that it will be the very local authorities that have the least money but also the greatest need which will go for money for governor training?

Baroness Hooper

Yes, my Lords. That is indeed an important consideration. We believe that as a result of underlining and increasing the responsibilities of school governors we shall be in a position to attract more people to take on that important and valuable role.

Lord Mellish

My Lords, will the Minister say what kind of training is going on in the inner London area? Is she aware, for example, that the greatest problem is to get governors at all? Many of them are political appointees and there just are not enough people to appoint. What is going on?

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, it will be part of government strategy when we look at the review that is currently being conducted to see to what extent we can improve the publicity and information materials available to attract people to act as governors.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour

My Lords, have the Government made any approach to the Open University for help in designing these very important training courses for school governors? If they have, have they had a satisfactory response?

Baroness Hooper

Yes, my Lords. Indeed the Open University already has a video and a course for school governors that has been used very effectively. The Government are following that up and consulting the Open College, which we also feel has a role to play in this context, as well as the BBC, voluntary organisations and specialist publications.

Baroness David

My Lords, will the Government support the payment of financial loss allowances to governors if they have to attend meetings that may not be very convenient? I know that the local authority can pay a travelling subsistence. JPs have financial loss allowances. Could not the Minister Support the idea that governors should too? They will need a lot of training, particularly with more schools having control of their own finances. Sometimes that involves very large sums of money.

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, the question of helping people who are prepared to give their time and energy to operate as school governors obviously lies in the area of facilitating them with expenses and expenses payments. That in fact already occurs. Obviously it would be helpful, since we hope that there will be a large number of governors representing employer interests, if the private sector helps in that. I am happy to say that some firms—Esso in particular—have taken a considerable lead in allowing employees to have time off and also in adding payment of some £100 a year to the school where Esso employees are governors. The BBC and the Civil Service are also giving paid leave for the task.

Lord Harmar-Nicholls

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in terms of training and payment, a good model to follow is that used with newly appointed magistrates? That is now well under way and it seems to have produced good results.

Baroness Hooper

Yes, my Lords. My noble friend has drawn my attention to a very interesting analogy. We are looking closely at the very effective training which is given to magistrates.

Lord Dormand of Easington

My Lords, will the Minister ensure that the training includes how to deal with disputes between boards of governors and local education authorities, and between boards of governors and the Department of Education and Science? The Minister can be assured that under the misguided measure called the Education Reform Bill, such disputes will increase to a great degree.

Baroness Hooper

My Lords, I fail to agree with the noble Lord.