UPDATE – This page is a few years old now so please visit our website for the latest Statutory information for your school website.

 

In March this year, new statutory guidance from the DfE regarding the constitution of governing bodies was published:

The constitution of governing bodies of maintained schools – Statutory guidance for governing bodies of maintained schools and local authorities in England

(Statutory guidance being that which must be complied with!)

This included guidance about the information which should be published about governors on the school website. In addition, from September 1st it will be a requirement for governors to publish a register of their interests on the school website. Here are the relevant details from the DfE guidance:

Extract of relevant paragraphs (page 10)

25. Governors hold an important public office and their identity should be known to their school and wider communities. In the interests of transparency, a governing body should publish on its website up-to-date details of its governance arrangements in a readily accessible form. (see note below) This should include:

• the structure and remit of the governing body and any committees, and the full names of the chair of each;
• for each governor who has served at any point over the past 12 months:
• their full names, date of appointment, term of office, date they stepped down (where applicable), who appointed them (in accordance with the governing body’s instrument of government), • relevant business and pecuniary interests (as recorded in the register of interests) including:
• governance roles in other educational institutions;
• any material interests arising from relationships between governors or relationships between governors and school staff (including spouses, partners and close relatives); and
• their attendance record at governing body and committee meetings over the last academic year.

26. Governing bodies should also publish this information for associate members, making clear whether they have voting rights on any of the committees to which they have been appointed.

Readily accessible form

Take care with this:

“Readily accessible means that the information should be on a webpage without the need to download or open a separate document.”

So basically the information needs to be presented on the page itself and not in a downloadable document.

 

 

 

This paragraph was removed from the guidance in September 15 and re-incorporated into (25)

26. From 1 September 2015, governing bodies will be under a duty to publish on their website their register of interests. The register should set out the relevant business interests of governors and details of any other educational establishments they govern. The register should also set out any relationships between governors and members of the school staff including spouses, partners and relatives.