You have to keep up a certain profile.”The spectrum of different governing bodies is quite wide, from those like select clubs to those where groundbreaking work is being done in an underprivileged area. In addition to the two or three meetings a term – I’m chair of two committees – there are also events, presentations and launches. You bring your own learning experiences to the table, but you don’t want to step on the toes of the day-to-day managers of the college. On the other hand, some governors gettoo involved in detail and don’t manage their strategic role properly.”The job takes up a lot of time – at one stage I read loads of background guidance that was immediately superceded, and I had to start all over again. So says Nigel Goddard, a chartered surveyor who has returned to Bexley College to sit on the governing body to “give something back”.”Now there is a more strategic alignment of governors with the college senior leadership team over curriculum issues. “Local employers need to be explicit about what they want,” he says “I would like to see more of them on our board. And we need people with broad skills, people who come with an open mind, rather than pursuing their own agenda, because we are there to serve the students, and through them, the community.” ‘THE JOB IS TIME-CONSUMING, BUT REWARDING’Governing bodies of FE colleges have changed since the days when they used to pitch up once a term to sign off financial statements.

Present rules mean he can only appoint one third of his board from local businesses, a figure he’d like to increase. The government is about to launch a review of college governance, and some hope it will abolish rules that restrict boards to quotas for groups such as local authority members or local business people.Bill Stokoe, chair of Hammersmith and Ealing College which, with a £45m turnover, is the biggest recipient of funds from the LSC, would like more flexibility. That can be difficult if people are left feeling part of the responsibility they had has been taken away – they may feel, ‘Why bother?’ Now there is more strategic involvement with other groups, we need to explain how that works,” he says.Walton says governors also want more flexibility in how they appoint to boards, so that the right mix can be found for each college, reflecting local needs. “The way things are dropped on you at short notice means it can be difficult to maintain the level of understanding needed to sign off and approve what the full-time staff are putting in front of you,” he says.The role needs redefining now that the LSC, unlike the old FEFC, has a planning as well as a funding role “We want good people. “We want them to refocus and realise they can think about the curriculum and understand it.”David Kissman, the chair of governors at Broxtowe college, Nottingham, and an associate consultant of the AOC, agrees that initiatives such as the helpline are useful if governors are not to become “nodding donkeys”. In addition, says Walton, not enough governors have got to grips with the key business – the learning needs of students “They tend to back off on curriculum issues,” he says. We need to tip that balance.”Stories like that of the governing body which ran up a very large financial deficit – because it believed what is was told by the principal – bear this out.

“It can be very reactive – 18 people round a table from diverse backgrounds working to the agenda of the principal and his team, rather than an agenda prepared by the chair and his team. “Governors feel they should be consulted more directly, and we’ll be bringing along some executive directors of the LSC to hear what they have to say at first hand.”Walton also wants to change the way bodies operate. “One of the downsides of collaborative changes that came with advent of the Learning and Skills Council [LSC] is that people tended to want to talk to principals, not governors,” says Walton. High on the agenda will be the role of chairs of governing bodies. He plans many visits, as well as culling information from an online questionnaire he has sent to all governing bodies.The culmination of this process comes tomorrow, when the results of that survey will be divulged at the first ever residential conference for governors held in York. “We are not encouraging its use for whistle blowing,” he says, “but genuine enquiries from governors, chairs, or clerks of governing bodies.