Council suspends recruitment of school governors after 'Trojan Horse' case

Birmingham City Council is to suspend recruitment of school governors until September and produce new guidance for incumbents as key parts of its response to the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair.

This began when an anonymous letter, dubbed Trojan Horse, alleged that an organised group of Islamic extremists was trying to take over certain local authority and academy schools in the city.

Education Secretary Michael Gove, regulator Ofsted and the council all launched investigations in the spring.

The matter led to a public row between Gove and Home Secretary Theresa May over how extremism should be combated, leading to the Education Secretary being forced to issue an apology by prime minister David Cameron for publicly criticising the Home Office.

Birmingham said in a statement it was “reassured that Ofsted has presented no evidence of a plot or conspiracy” although the inspectorate had found “unacceptable actions by a few people in a few schools”.

The council said it was “clear that some governors and governors bodies have failed in their duties [and] there are areas in which the council’s support needs to be reviewed and strengthened”.

Birmingham’s response will see action plans initiated for each affected school and the continued suspension of governor recruitment until September.

After that a revised process for recruitment, appointment and training of governors will be implemented, together with a ‘good governance guide’, defining the responsibilities of governors, heads and principals, and their training needs.

The council noted that two schools subject to the greatest concern, Park View and Oldknow, were both academies, but said it would work with the DfE on improvement.

The prime minister, who intervened after the row between the two cabinet ministers, said he would ask Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw “to report back on the practicalities of allowing any school to be inspected at no notice”, since the Education Funding Agency had found that notice periods were used in schools in Birmingham “to put on hastily arranged shows of cultural inclusively”.

The Education Secretary said: “We have to ensure children are safe in our schools. Evidence uncovered in Birmingham clearly indicates that schools have used the notice they have been given of inspections to evade proper scrutiny.”

Among Sir Michael’s findings were that some headteachers felt they have been marginalised or forced out of their jobs by governors, resulting in a rapid decline in standards in schools previously assessed by Ofsted as good or outstanding.

Governors had “exerted inappropriate influence on policy and the day-to-day running of several schools”.

Ofsted criticised the council for failing to deal adequately with complaints from headteachers about the conduct of governors.

Park View Educational Trust, which runs the Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen schools said it “wholeheartedly disputes the validity” of Ofsted’s decision to rate them as inadequate and put them into special measures.

“We believe [Ofsted] were working to a timeline and in a climate of suspicion, driven by the Trojan Horse letter and coupled with unproven allegations about Park View that had started to appear in the media,” the trust said.

It added: “The Trust does not accept the findings of the reports, which mischaracterise the schools, and is now challenging them through the appropriate legal channels.”

The Local Government Association seized on the problem experienced by the academies in Birmingham to make the case for the restoration of some local authority powers over these schools.

Children and young people board chair David Simmonds said: “Parents need to know who is accountable for their local school, but under the current system accountability is confusing and fragmented.

“It is clear that effective oversight of standards and finance in schools across the UK cannot be exercised from Whitehall, and the jumble of regimes risks leaving mums and dads unsure where to go for help when they have concerns.”

Councils could spot warning signs and tackle problems if they had effective powers to intervene “without the need to ask permission from Whitehall,” Cllr Simmonds added.