Legislation update - school governance

Two sets of regulations were made in 2012 to deal with the issue of governance in maintained schools in England; both of these have now been updated.  Thomas Emmett explains how these are likely to affect your school. 

The School Governance (Federations) (England) Regulations 2012 set out, amongst other things, when a federation can be established and dissolved (including details of the procedure for doing so).  Also covered in the regulations are the types of governor that can be appointed and the composition of federation schools’ governing bodies.

The School Governance (Constitution) (England) Regulations 2012 detail the constitution of governing bodies of maintained schools, including setting a maximum term for governors.  The regulations also cover the principles for determining the size and composition of a governing body.

Both regulations have, however, recently been amended by The School Governance (Constitution and Federations) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2017.  

The 2017 regulations include provisions to:

• Remove the rounding up and down provisions for calculating the number of school governors
• Clarify the order of preference categories of parents from whom the governing body can appoint parent governors
• Add a procedure for governing bodies to remove elected governors
• Add a provision relating to the disqualification of an elected parent or staff governor from holding office, or continuing, as a governor for five years after their removal from office
• Clarify who may make an application for an Academy order under section 3(6) of the Academies Act 2010 in respect of a federated school

All of the above changes are now in force.