Governance Support & Services

Effectiveness of support and information, advice and guidance Support received

Advice was most frequently received from the clerk, the local authority governor coordinator/governor support services and the school improvement partner. For example, half of governors (50 per cent) reported having received a lot of advice from the clerk. In contrast, just over half (52 per cent) said they had received a little through networking with other governors. The case study data largely supported these findings and indicated that there was some scope for improvement with regard to networking. However, the time required to undertake such activities was noted as a particular barrier.

Further analysis of support received indicated a statistically significant difference in the proportion of respondents involved in networking with other governors; a greater proportion of secondary respondents (46 per cent) than their primary counterparts (38 per cent) had accessed such support.

In contrast, over four fifths of governor respondents indicated that they had received no advice from a mentor and over three fifths had received no advice from the NGA or Governorline. Access to support from the NGA and Governorline was reported to be variable amongst case study interviewees.

However, reasons for not accessing advice from these central services included having received sufficient support at a local level.

The full Nfer Report by Tami McCrone,Clare Southcott and Nalia George can be found below

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/nfer/publications/LGMS01/LGMS01.pdf