Selecting and using a Code of Governance to strengthen and support governing

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Supporting 16-19 Governance - 01

Selecting and using a Code of Governance to strengthen and support governing a sixth form college

By Dr Ron Hill, Visiting Professor at the University of Sunderland

What’s the benefit of a code of governance?

A code of governance can be a very useful guide for shaping how the processes and practices of governing are organised. As well as guidance on approaches to governing, a code can provide a basis against which to review how effective the performance of governing is in relation to the purpose of the organisation – in our case, the educational purpose of the college. The code should be a living, vibrant contributor to governing activity, but it is not ‘governing by numbers’. The code is the stimulus – how do we meet this expectation? – rather than providing a narrow set of rules and regulations.

There should be life in a code of governance, in contrast to the experience from some recent external governance reviews where the influence of the code seems buried, even forgotten, and often taken for granted in governing board statements of compliance at the year end. ‘Yes, of course we comply’ unfortunately seems to be as prevalent as a more objective review against code expectations.

The requirement to adopt a code

The starting point for this article about codes of governance is that it is a (funding) requirement for college corporations, that one of two governance codes be followed. The assumed options are the Charity Governance code and the Further Education Code of Good Governance.

The Department for Education recently signalled its intent to remove the UK Corporate Governance Code* as an option for colleges and therefore it is not considered here. The requirement to adopt a code appears in annex A of the College Accounts Direction 2023 to 2024 (Education and Skills Funding Agency).

Currently, there is no requirement for individual sixth form colleges within academy trusts to follow a governance code. However, it is recommended, but not required, that the academy trust adopts a governance code.

Catholic Colleges will wish to consider any view of Catholic Education Service.

The main code contenders

In my view, there are three leading contenders for the competition to be selected as the governance code by the governing board of a sixth form college or governing board of a multi-academy trust (including a sixth form college or colleges). In all the three cases below, the documents are undated. This article refers to the version of each code consulted on 2 July 2024.

The leading contenders are:

•           Charity Governance Code

•           Academy Trust Governance Code (Confederation of School Trusts)**

•           Further Education Code of Good Governance

The available code documentation varies in length from 12 pages (Further Education Code of Good Governance) to 28 pages (Charity Governance code) and 35 pages (Academy Trust code). Accordingly, the degree of detail varies between these codes. More detail may be seen as an advantage i.e. greater clarity, or as a disadvantage as being more prescriptive. So, what should governing boards look for when selecting a code or codes?

*Whilst the UK Corporate Governance Code (revised in 2024) produced by the Financial Reporting Council is being withdrawn as an option for colleges, this code can be of value and governance professionals might wish to be familiar with its contents for comparison and wider professional knowledge.

**Adoption of this code by a college corporation would need support from the ESFA as it is currently not listed as an option.

What to look for in a code

The selection of a code of governance is an important decision for a governing board of a sixth form college or a governing board of a multi-academy trust including a sixth form college. The criteria for selecting the preferred code could be as follows below (in no particular order). The criteria are expressed as questions for the governing board to address.

Is the code understandable? That is, is it understandable by the governing board (not just the chair of the governing board), the governance professional, senior staff?

Does the code connect easily with the purpose of the organisation (which will be educational in nature)? Obviously, the Further Education Code of Good Governance and the Academy Trust code are designed for organisations with an educational purpose; whereas the Charity code requires interpretation and connection to the educational purpose of the organisation.

How and when will compliance with the code be judged? The adoption of any code is based on the assumption of comply or explain. This means that at the point of adopting the code, there should be a clear, agreed arrangement for judging whether the code is being complied with and, importantly, whether there are any aspects of the code where compliance is not being achieved.

Does the code offer developmental potential? Any code should be used for the development of the governing board and so this potential should be considered as part of the decision for adoption.

Making a simple comparison (the order of appearance of principles in codes has been altered to assist this comparison)

	Code of Good Governance	Academy Trust code	Charity Governance code
Principle 1	Determination of aims and strategic oversight	Delivering the Academy Trust’s charitable objects	Organisational purpose
Principle 2	Leadership and integrity	Leadership	Leadership
Principle 3	See above	Integrity	Integrity
Principle 4	Collaboration and stakeholder engagement	Decision-making, risk and control	Decision-making, risk and control
Principle 5	Board and organisational effectiveness	Board effectiveness	Board effectiveness
Principle 6	Regulatory compliance	Equality, diversity and inclusion	Equality, diversity and inclusion
Principle 7	Responsibility and accountability	Openness and accountability	Openness and accountability

Table 1: To show a simple comparison of code principles

It can be seen from Table 1 that the Academy Trust Governance Code and the Charity Governance Code share a similar framework of principles and statements of norms and performance statements. The Further Education Code of Good Governance matches most
of the principles, but departs from its previous format for a shorter but more complex mapping approach.

A governing board faced with this picture may decide:

to adopt more than one code, to gain the benefit of the breadth from more than one code

In this case, the governing board would need to ensure all the expectations from the codes adopted were being addressed

to adopt one code, and be cognisant of relevant aspects of other codes to gain maximum impact from available codes

In this case the governing board would need to be very clear what the additional selections from codes were, why they had been selected, and how they would be used for the benefit of governing.

Where is ‘teaching and learning’?

This is something we must talk about, whichever code has been adopted. Governing an organisation with an educational purpose should mean that deliberation and decision making by the governing board places teaching and learning at the centre of all interests. Therefore, the task with any of these three codes is to ensure that the purpose of education pervades all aspects of governing.

To make progress with this imperative, for every element of the adopted code, the board, senior staff and the governance professional should be clear how the code statement…

relates to teaching and learning,

requires/stimulates evidence of teaching and learning.

It should not be assumed that implementing a sector-based code will automatically achieve that.

Implementing a code

A very useful starting point is to connect the expectations of the code of to the annual calendar of business for the governing board. Thus, when and how will each of the provisions in the code be addressed by the governing board and, following on, what evidence (including that
of teaching and learning) will be used to judge whether each aspect of the code has been achieved?

Each of the three codes use a variety of active verbs for the governing board behaviour such as:

…The board ensures

…The board makes sure

…The board considers

…The board promotes

…The board scrutinises

…The board oversees

The task for implementation is to appreciate what each verb is expecting and then to convert the expectation into relevant governing processes. This is primarily a task for the governance professional to lead on, but becomes a shared responsibility for the chair, governors, the principal, senior staff as well.

Helpfully, each code includes ‘outcomes’ to assist with the implementation of the code.

In the case of the Further Education Code of Good Governance, there are a ‘rationale’, ‘outcomes’ ‘behaviours’, ‘recommended practice’ and ‘suggested sources of assurance’ to guide implementation. It is the combination of this content that makes up the code.

The Academy code is based on ‘rationale’, ‘key outcomes’, and ‘guidance on implementation’.

The Charity code is based on ‘rationale’, ‘key outcomes’ and ‘recommended practice’.

As mentioned earlier, it could be very useful to a governance professional to trawl for useful insight across all three codes to gain a more complete understanding.

Summary and conclusion

To summarise, there is a requirement for a governing board of a sixth form college to adopt a code of governance. This article makes the case for the adoption of a code that can easily connect to the charitable purpose of sixth form colleges i.e. provision of education. However, it is important that the selected code is understandable to all associated with governing e.g. governors, senior staff, governance professional. This could mean that the latest version of the Further Education Code of Good Governance is potentially less attractive than the Academy Trust

Code or the Charity Governance Code as the format of this code doesn’t use norms and expected statements of performance (as the previous version did) but presents a mapping approach.

It is vital that the governing board connects all aspects of its adopted code to teaching and learning to ensure relevance and impact. Adopting the code is the starting point, applying the code is where the real gain for teachers and learners should be found.

SFCA comments on senior pay

Boards need to be aware that if adopting the Further Education Code of Good Governance they should ensure to maintain their autonomy and freedoms in setting principal and senior pay levels and not inadvertently adopt the AoC College Senior Post Holder Remuneration Code.

SFCA member colleges consider senior pay as part of their overall reward strategy for the whole workforce and place a high value on their autonomy to set their principal’s pay level. Colleges take account of a number of factors including, additional scrutiny placed on colleges as institutions operating within the public sector to validate decisions taken by the corporation on pay setting; economic challenges such as inflation and the changing nature of institutions and growing complexity of Senior Post Holder (SPH) roles.

Pay at all levels needs to be adequate to secure and retain high-quality employees but at the same time needs to avoid being above reasonable benchmarks or otherwise excessive (or seen as such).

 

Each college will have its own way of balancing those factors, with legitimately differing emphases reflecting differing circumstances.

As part of their own pay policy statement boards already take a fair, consistent and transparent approach to pay setting and take full account of comparisons of SPH pay with pay levels/rates within the sector, broken down by region, college size, institution type etc while also making comparisons with the wider education sector, public sector and private sector to ensure pay levels are comparative and competitive.

The SFCA has supported a number of colleges with this work and will continue to undertake bespoke senior pay levels check for colleges including comparison of job content/weighting between the SPH roles and consideration of complexity and comparison of similar level jobs within the SFC sector and wider education sector. A model pay policy can be viewed here.

Supporting 16-19 Governance

SFCA provides a year round programme of governance themed webinars, giving the opportunity for all board members, governance professionals and staff to attend live sessions on topics relevant to their role and participate in Q&A.

With expert insights across a range of themes the programme provides an essential and highly convenient opportunity for governor development that is tailored to 16-19 institutions.

All webinars are recorded and made available for on-demand viewing. Register here.

Governance professionals are supported by an online Hub and can connect with colleagues to and share ideas, insights, challenges and opportunities. All members have access to our governance resources and chairs of governors have access to our Chair Hub.