Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support and development opportunities her Department has helped to provide to school governors over the last five years.

The Department offers an induction programme for new trust board chairs providing them with guidance on working with the Department.

In addition, the Department funds the recruitment of school governors to Local Authority maintained schools and local governing bodies of academy trusts, through the Department’s contractor ‘Inspiring Governance’, who also offer induction support to recruits. Where governing and trust boards require targeted support to help secure effective governance, the Department runs the National Leaders of Governance programme, contracted to the National Governance Association to deliver.

In the last five years, the Department has also run other programmes, including development for chairs, development for governance professionals, and the recruitment of academy trustees.