Agenda and minutes

At this point Members are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have in the business on this agenda. A list of general personal interests previously declared are attached.

Members were invited to declare at this point in the meeting any personal or prejudicial interests they might have in the business agenda.

The following general personal non-prejudicial interests were declared:

Councillor Hyman as chair of governors at Huntington Primary School.

Dr D Sellick as a governor of Derwent Infant and Junior School.

Mr J Bailey as a governor of Huntington School and Huntington Primary School.

To approve and sign the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee held on 18 July 2007.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on 18 July 2007 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

At this point in the meeting members of the public who have registered their wish to speak regarding an item on the agenda or an issue within the Committee’s remit can do so. Anyone who wishes to register or requires further information is requested to contact the Democracy Officer on the contact details listed at the foot of this agenda. The deadline for registering is Monday 10September at 17:00.

It was reported that here had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

This report provides Members with background information on two presentations they will be receiving on possible future education scrutiny topics.

Members discussed the possibility of a new scrutiny topic, The Role of School Governors.  To help make a decision Members received a presentation from the Governance Services Manager, which covered the following:

·        The Role of Governors

·        School Governor Training Programme

·        Service Agreement

·        National Benchmarking of Governor Services

·        Clerking Service

·        Support for Governors

Members discussed in detail possible valuable areas for review within this specific topic.  They also heard from the Executive Member for Children’s Services, who attended the meeting to identify potential useful areas for Scrutiny review.  The Executive Member endorsed proposals for undertaking a review of the Role of School Governors, particularly with regard to extended schools and the joint area review coming up in January 2008.

RESOLVED: (i)That a report be received at the next meeting on a potential remit for reviewing the topic relating to School Governors as originally registered by the former Cllr Kind.

(ii)               That authority be sought from the Scrutiny Management Committee to incur appropriate expenditure on undertaking a suitable survey as part of a consultative process associated with the review.

(iii)             That a report be received at an early meeting of the Committee with details of a proposed survey and associated costs.

(iv)              That the Executive Member for Children’s Services be invited to periodically attend future meetings to discuss beneficial Scrutiny reviews.

REASON:               To ensure any decision on whether to proceed with a review   is fully informed.