Issue - meetings

(a)       That the report be noted; and

(b)       That Members who are themselves school governors ensure they are aware of their school’s own Code of Conduct.

The Senior Manager, Business Change & Support presented a report on the principles of a Code of Conduct for school governors in Wales.

Each governing body was required to agree and conform to its own Code which should be in line with the principles of conduct set out in the report.  The Council was not aware that any governors had been dismissed due to misconduct or not completing statutory training.  There were currently around 1,220 governors in Flintshire schools, including 250 local authority positions on governing bodies and over half of Flintshire county councillors had taken up the position as local authority governor.

In response to questions from Mrs. Julia Hughes, the Senior Manager explained that it was the responsibility of governing bodies to maintain standards by self-monitoring training and promoting compliance with the Code of Conduct.  As part of the training regulations, local authorities were obliged to make available statutory training for Chairs, Clerks and new governors.  Governing bodies were required to suspend or disqualify any governor who had failed to complete this within 12 months of their appointment.

Mr. Rob Dewey asked about training records and was told that these were kept by Clerks and were checked during Estyn inspections.  Individuals who had been a governor for more than two years at the time that the training regulations were introduced in 2013 were exempt from the statutory induction training.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the report be noted; and

(b)       That Members who are themselves school governors ensure they are aware of their school’s own Code of Conduct.