Has school which chose to ignore parent critics of its academisation gone against the Nolan principle of accountability?

Have a school’s governors, who have refused to engage with parent critics of possibly the biggest decision they could ever take, violated one of the Nolan principles which they are supposed to stand by?

The Department for Education’s Governance Handbook, which “sets out the government’s vision and priorities for effective school and trust governance” states: “everyone involved in governance should be aware of and accept the 7 principles of public life”, as set out by Lord Nolan and applying to anyone, locally and nationally, who is elected or appointed as a public office-holder.

The fourth Nolan principle is “Accountability”. This reads: “Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.”

It is hard to see how the governing body at Steyning Grammar School (SGS), in West Sussex, can have upheld such a principle given the school’s recent reaction to those criticising the decision, of this school with origins back to the 17^th century, to academise under the Bohunt Education Trust (BET).

The background

Steyning parent Adrian Davey started a petition calling for a halt to the move, which had first been hinted at by the governing body and Bohunt in a joint letter to parents back in January.

The petition argued that there should be an extension to the academisation process, as Covid has meant information on the move “has not been properly shared”.

The petition said parents had not been properly consulted, and asked – visitors from other countries might find it scandalous that this needed to be requested - for all meeting minutes, from both the school’s governing body and the Bohunt trust, to be published immediately.

The petition had received approaching 1,200 signatures at the time of writing.

Comments below the petition include some identifying themselves as parents, with one saying: “As a mother of four (two presently attending SGS) I have had very little information regarding the effects of Bohunt take over.”

Another parent told the West Sussex County Times that some parents of year seven pupils were not aware of the plans, and that: “The ‘consultation process’ hasn’t actually been a consultation process – they more or less told us ‘this is what’s happening’.”

On the first day of the new half-term on November 2nd, Sue Gearing, the chair of governors at Steyning, Neil Strowger, Bohunt’s chief executive, and the school’s two headteachers sent a letter to parents confirming the fact that academisation, which had been scheduled for November 1^st, had been put back by a month.

But the reason was not so that consultation with the community could be more extensive, or for additional information to be provided, but “owing to the complexities and size of SGS and practicalities involved”.

Strikingly, the letter confirmed what has seemed obvious from this school’s responses so far to requests for information. It would simply be ignoring any local criticism, and ploughing on regardless.

The letter stated: “As you may be aware, there is a small minority of local voices seeking a pause in the SGS membership of BET. We have chosen not to respond publicly to these voices.”

This on what is, to repeat, just about the biggest decision any governing body could ever take, with academisation meaning a permanent change of control, with all decision-making power from now onwards vesting with the incoming academy trust, rather than with any local body.

Petitions can draw in support from outside the affected communities, so I sought to get a rough idea how many signatures might have been local. Davey told me he had been through the names and addresses and 556 were parents local to the school.

That may be a “minority” of parents for what is a large school – but “small minority” is pushing it. It remains questionable that any parent should be ignored on an issue as major as this, let alone hundreds.

Wider context

The school seems not to have responded much at all to parents, and the public, who have been seeking details of its consultation process and decision-making.

As this website has pointed out, as far as I can see no consultation document was ever put forward to parents, on which they might be able to form a view. (When I have asked for one, I have been  directed to a series of questions and answers on the school’s website.)

Neither has any information been provided to this community, again as far as I can see having asked for it, on what the consultation – such as it was* – actually found out.

There are no relevant minutes of governing body meetings available on Steyning’s website, although, having asked, I have now been sent minutes for the meeting in March at which governors confirmed their original “in principle” move to academise, and breezily went through what it said were generally positive responses to its consultation. (See discussion of some of the detail in today's news piece)

And there is very little information, in those q and as, as to the detailed discussions governors had about this momentous decision for the school, with the now-released March minutes offering copious bullet points but little sense of how the momentous decision was interrogated from a sceptical viewpoint, if indeed it was.

The November 2nd letter revealed that Steyning’s governing body itself has been disbanded, with an “Interim Executive Board” imposed in its place to carry out the academy conversion.

But basic information – namely who is on this board and who took the decision to disband its predecessor – seems not to have been provided.

And now the school’s response to those parents who are raising concerns and asking for more information is to, effectively, simply ignore them.

A second Nolan principle, one which requires openness, should clearly also be under discussion, here.

But it is on the notion of accountability – that decision-makers should be accountable, and should explain their decision-making in detail – to those affected by their decisions where this now-former governing body seems to have fallen down so dramatically.

It still is possible to wonder whether a legal challenge might be viable in this case, with one specialist lawyer telling me in the past few days that a “consultation” which took place without “giving sufficient reasons for a proposal to permit intelligent consideration” by the public – ie, perhaps, one which had offered no consultation document to parents– might be vulnerable to just such a claim.

Having read the March 11^th meeting minutes, what also jumps out at me is the scandalous apparent lack of any formal national rules around decision-making transparency in such cases.

This governing body initially could simply decide not to make any information available as to why they had taken their crucial “in principle” decision to academise under Bohunt. They cited a range of reasons/excuses including non-disclosure “gagging clauses” having been signed, not wanting to appear negative about the local authority, commercial confidentiality – this is supposed to be a public service – and personal data protection (presumably easily covered by potential redactions).

Yet all decision-making of such strategic importance should be available by right to the public. It simply should not be possible for any governing body, deciding whether or not to pass its control to another organisation, to make meeting minutes on something this important confidential.

I would go further. As in the American charter schools system, in fact all governing board meetings should be held in public. It should be possible for those affected by decisions – a school’s community – to scrutinise the thinking of decision-makers at meetings where decisions are taken, or at least to watch as others do so.

As it is, the aloofness of the decision-making in this case seems staggering.

I say that despite the comments in the minutes about governors wanting to avoid “intimidation” by teachers’ representatives, and so not engaging with public and media discussions. This it seems, was deemed enough by the decision-makers to absolve them of their Nolan accountability responsibilities.

Where was a reasonable alternative voice on this governing body, who might have argued along the lines of “we might not like how this issue is being covered in the media, or how we are being criticised, but we still need to engage with those criticisms”?

In its non-release of information, this seems to me to be one of the most shameful private stitch-ups between a governing body and a trust I’ve witnessed in 20 years covering the academies policy.

Is that a harsh verdict? Well, there is a lot of competition out there.

But decision-makers should be aware that failing even to provide details of their thought processes, including how other organisations were considered than Bohunt, if indeed they ever were, inevitably invites such thoughts. 

Cases like this really should be seen as shocking by all, including academy supporters, as they surely undermine public support for the policy by all who witness such goings-on close-up. 

*The “consultation” seems to have consisted mainly of two public meetings – allegedly poorly attended - after the January letter, which while mentioning a “partnership” with Bohunt and that it was an academy trust, did not spell out the plan for the school to become an academy, plus a series of question and answers on the school’s website.