Oxford Diocesan Bucks Schools Trust Governors' Briefing Pack

22 8. Governance frequently asked questions and answers a. What are the expected changes to the Governing Body? The ODBST has a central board of Trustees, appointed by the Oxford Diocesan Board of Education, which is responsible to the Secretary of State for overall standards for each school in the ODBST and for maintaining a strategic oversight of the Trust. The school’s Local Governing Body will also be established which will be responsible for the day-to-day operational matters, and accountable to the board of Trustees. Recruiting and retaining governors with key skills and experience remains a key task for all schools and the ODBST are committed to supporting governors in their role b. What will happen to local links and partnerships that we already have? These will continue. By joining the ODBST it does not preclude us from being part of local partnerships which are for the benefit of the school. c. What will our governing body delegated powers and functions consist of? It would be called a Local Governing Body (LGB) and its delegated powers are set out in what is known as a scheme of delegation. Although the ODBST is accountable for the success of your school, we are committed to delegating powers back to local schools so that they maintain their individuality. The draft Scheme of Delegation is available for schools to consider. d. If we were to be part of the ODBST would the Trust have the final say in everything that Governor's decide? No, it doesn’t necessarily work like that; the scheme of delegation captures the general principles and in many important aspects of school governance, everything stays the same but with different terminology. There will be some areas where the ODBST would be directly involved - e.g. in Headteacher recruitment- and there could conceivably be some scenarios, such as in finance or school improvement, where the ODBST would make a final decision on the basis that the underlying accountability for the school lies with the ODBST, just as in the same way the Local Authority could at present. Whilst such a scenario hasn’t arisen to date, we would always seek to discuss matters firstly with the local governing body. e. What Governor requirement will the ODBST place on the school, e.g. x parish councilors, y diocese governors etc? The model for a Church of England converter is HT, 2 elected parents, 1 elected staff, 8 Foundation. In practice we normally find the existing governing body is accommodated in the new local governing body; if there are vacancies at the point of conversion we would work with the school to help fill them; if there are more than 12 governors at the point of conversion we find we are usually ableto accommodate them and then through time if governors leave they aren’t replaced until the number overall reduces to 12.