The key to effective governance - know your stuff

Media Release

The key to effective governance by school trustees - “know your stuff”

The best laid plans of a school board of trustees can come unstuck if board members don’t truly understand their role, according to Wellington public lawyer Robert Buchanan.

“While it’s essential for trustees to have aims and aspirations for their school, if they don’t understand the reality of working in the school environment, and what it means to be a good governor, these plans can remain unfulfilled.”

Mr Buchanan says school trustees can be compared in some ways to local body councillors. A councillor might, for example, run their election campaign on the platform of not raising rates - but unless they understand the reality of how rates are set - these promises can come back to bite them. Similarly for school trustees, who have an important representative role but need to understand the reality of school governance if they are to make a difference.

Mr Buchanan will be addressing an estimated 600 delegates at the New Zealand School Trustees Association conference in Wellington this week on the topic of school governance.

He says one of the keys to successful school governance is to ensure the board has a good relationship with the school principal. The episode at Cambridge High School over NCEA results and management conflicts of interest in 2005 was a potent example of what can happen when this communication breaks down.

“In this case the principal had a strong vision but she didn’t take the board along with her. If the board had had a better understanding of its role and if this had been reflected in better communication with the principal and more effective oversight of her activities, it might have been able to avoid the crisis.”

School governance and the role of a trustee is not straightforward. Mr Buchanan says trustees need to get to grips with a lot of specialist material and they need to know that as a public sector board they are accountable for their decisions and that those decisions will come under scrutiny. Understanding the key elements of the governance role is something that every new board member should aspire to over time.

“People come to boards as a volunteer community representative, and in some cases it’s not until they actually sit on the board that they realise they are actually in charge of running a ‘business’that’s an employer of staff and responsible for the care of significant publicly-owned assets.”

But Mr Buchanan says trustees should take heart, and that with a good understanding of their role and a commitment to work in partnership with each other and with the principal, they will be able to run as an effective board.

He says boards should take all the training opportunities that come their way and make use of all the resources available to them. These include support from the New Zealand School Trustees Association, the Ministry of Education and various websites.

“It can be very hard for a new board member, who is a volunteer, to understand everything about the way a school operates and the intricacies of being in the public sector. It takes time to come to an understanding, but this is the key to good governance - that you know the organisation you are dealing with, that you come to know your stuff. The results can be hugely satisfying.”

Robert Buchanan will be addressing the conference at 8:45 am on Friday 6 July at the Michael Fowler Centre.

ENDS

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