Education and Adoption Bill

I am happy to respond. I am still a school governor and many noble Lords will be aware that the governance of maintained schools has had to change, and rightly so, for the reasons that have been given. By September of this year, school governing bodies had been completely overhauled. Many school governors are now co-opted for their specific expertise or experience. On my governing body we have two people who work in local businesses, an IT expert, someone from the finance sector to help with that side of things, as well as a couple of parent governors, staff governors, and by choice, a local authority governor. School governance has been substantially strengthened by these regulations and, where it is done well, they will inject two important elements. One is expertise and understanding, along with keeping the involvement of staff members and parents, and the other is that it is locally based. At the school where I remain on the governing body, it is local business people who are involved. That would be true across the piece, which is to everyone’s enormous advantage.