John Bingham: 'Governors are having more impact and reporting greater job satisfaction than before'

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Often, people who are thinking about becoming a college governor spend little time considering how the institutions work and are directed before they decide to join a board. Most become governors because they want to put something back in to their community. They possess knowledge or skills that will benefit staff and the students they serve, and quite understandably they don't focus their thoughts too much on the intricacies of further education and the instruments and articles of governance.

But on joining a board, they must quickly become familiar with specialist knowledge. Unfortunately, the information, training and support offered to prospective, new (and, to a certain extent, existing) governors have often been limited and dependent on individual colleges. In many respects, there has been a tendency to assume that governors will ask questions of areas they need to know about. The sector needs to address this issue and provide more all-round support for them. The creation of the Governors' Council by the Association of Colleges is at last set to change all this by providing guidance and assistance that governors tell us they need. The result is that governors are already having a greater impact – and reporting greater job satisfaction – than they had in the past.

I'm not suggesting that college governors are crying out for help. In some ways, it's almost insulting to suggest they need to be trained at all in certain areas. A local business person who decides to become a college governor, for example, is unlikely to need training in the area of strategy, finance or business, but they may need help grasping the idiosyncrasies of college funding rules. While existing training already provides this to a certain extent, the new Governors' Council offers a number of ways in which governors will be able to explore this topic in greater detail, should they so wish. Many do. After all, the defining roles of college governors – setting strategic direction, ensuring accountability, and monitoring and evaluating college performance – require, at least in part, knowledge around how college funding streams can best be utilised.

New governors are provided with inductions specific to their institution by the majority of colleges, but some governors are increasingly expressing an interest in more generic training, so that they can learn more about other colleges and how they work, as well as gain a better appreciation of the college sector in general. Similarly, governors have told us they would like to be better briefed on the wider political context in which further education sits.

Even though the Governors' Council was only formed last year, it has already started to make an impact. We have introduced, or in a few instances revived, national and regional networks. Governors say they are benefiting enormously from better links with other colleges, and for the first time feel as though there is genuine joined-up thinking. We have produced a new national briefing system for governors that includes important information on national developments affecting colleges, and we have been instrumental in ensuring that governors are invited to the special events and seminars that have previously been seen as primarily for college principals.

There has long been an emphasis on chairs of governors, simply because they sit at the helm of all other governors. What is crucially different is that this emphasis is being extended such that all governors are now being provided for.

There's no doubt that being a college governor is time-consuming, demanding and carries responsibilities, but those who take on the role speak passionately about the unrivalled satisfaction of seeing for themselves the tangible benefits of determining the overall pattern of the college's provision and then making sure that everyone within the college does their bit to make it happen. Such a job allows governors to bring innovative ideas to the table, and they get to see the results of their work in action.

Any governor will tell you that there's nothing like attending a college presentation event, where they see the huge impact that colleges make on the lives of individuals from all walks of life. The Governors' Council will hopefully increase this sense of pride to an even greater extent and improve the support for governors to the level they need and deserve.