Decision details

Mr Stott, Director of Universal and Early Support Services, Directorate for Children and Young People presented a report which set out the traded services arrangements for Lancashire County Council's Governor Services. 

Helen Brownjohn, Head of Governor Services, reported that Lancashire County Council had provided traded Governor Services to school governing bodies since the introduction of Local Management of Schools following the 1988 Education Reform Act. The service was highly regarded both in the North West and nationally and this was reflected in the number of school governing bodies buying into the services.

It was further reported that school governing bodies were able to buy into:

·  Governor Services Clerking provision (a fully traded service) which a significant proportion of Lancashire maintained schools did.  The number was increasing as Ofsted became more focused on evaluating the effectiveness of governing bodies.  The options for buy-in clerking were set out Appendices Bi and Bii to the report, for Maintained Schools/Pupil Referral Units and Academy Schools respectively.

·  Governor Training and Development (fully traded). Over half the total number of governors in the County were attending training courses  and the number of Academies returning to buying training from the service had increased year on year over the past three years

·  Governor Information – provided in a number of ways via, amongst others, the Schools' Portal and the magazine 'the Lancashire Governor'

·  Statutory and Strategic functions and co-ordinating school-based complaints on behalf of the Directorate and the Authority

It was noted that feedback from service users was a credit to the Service.

In considering the report, members made the following comments:

·  The 'Lancashire Governor,' an information magazine produced each term was very well received by governors

·  That Governor Services also worked with Diocesan bodies, providing work of the highest quality

·  In response to a query on changes being made to governing bodies, Mr Stott explained that governing bodies were to move away from the stakeholder model to a skills based model with only one Local Authority representative.  Ofsted had recommended smaller governing bodies but there was no minimum or maximum size in legislation. 

Members thanked Helen Brownjohn, Head of Governor Services, for the high quality of work provided by the Service.

Resolved:  That the report setting out the arrangements for Lancashire County Council's Governor Services be noted.