“Providing challenge is an essential part of good governance”: National Governance Association suggests DfE should be checking that multi-academy trusts have elected parents as governors

The government should be checking whether multi-academy trusts have at least two parents within the governance structure of all their schools, a leading representative body for governors has suggested, after this website revealed how rarely this is taking place in the largest chains.

The National Governance Association (NGA) said the Department for Education’s regional offices should be “asking questions” of trusts where elected parents do not feature as governors, given that DfE rules say they should.

Yesterday, Education Uncovered revealed how England’s 10 largest multi-academy trusts have only 22 per cent of their schools where at least two elected parents – or parents who were appointed, in cases where insufficient candidates had come forward for election – are on individual governing bodies or on the trust board itself.

Trusts with at least 30 schools had a rate of 29 per cent of their academies with at least two parents; for those with 21 to 29 academies it rose to 38 per cent, while it was 40 per cent for chains with 11 to 20 schools, and 46 per cent for those with two to 10 schools.

This is despite government regulatory documents stating that trusts should be in this position for all of their schools, unless they could “demonstrate” a good reason not to do so.