Question: Can a governing body decide that they "won't have a staff governor until September" despite the last rep leaving at Easter with plenty of notice? There are two people who have expressed an interest but the head is refusing to hold an election or get nominations. Are there any rules about this?

Joan Sallis replies: This is often raised in questions from governors, particularly staff ones and the answer is not all that concise. I feel it is rather a neglected area so I’ll start by saying that the constitution of governing bodies as a process ought to have more priority and I deplore casual attitudes towards keeping the numbers and proportions up to date. The head should not be allowed to leave a governing body without the full staff representation for a whole term and governors should not acquiesce. Here are the somewhat scrappy rules I have found but their intentions are clear: In view of the frequency of this complaint I hope I may quote in full what I have discovered:

"The clerk is responsible for notifying the governing body of any vacancies (Ref: Regulation 9 of the School Governance (Procedures) (England) Regulations 2003). In the case of community, community special, maintained nursery and voluntary controlled schools, the ‘LEA’ must make all the necessary arrangements for the election of staff governors. For foundation, voluntary aided and foundation special schools, it is the governing body that has this responsibility. In all cases the responsibility can be delegated to the headteacher. (Ref: Regulation 5 and Schedule 2 of the School Governance (Constitution) (England) Regulations 2003)). The DfES model job description for the clerk to the governing body suggests that the clerk should advise governors and appointing bodies of the dates when governors’ terms of office are due to expire before the expiry date, so that elections or appointments can be organised 'in a timely manner'. There seems to be no time limit on filling vacancies. There was once a requirement for vacancies to be filled within a three-month period, or something of that order. I think the requirement was removed as being unenforceable, but the expectation was that all vacancies should be filled as soon as possible."

It looks as though the responsibility in your case has indeed been delegated to the head teacher either by the LEA or the governing body itself, but the intention is clearly that there should be no unreasonable delay. Complain to the LEA if it is an LEA school or put pressure on the head if it is another type of school where you yourselves must be presumed to have delegated at some time.

My own LEA’s guidance is as follows: "Once a vacancy for an elected staff, teacher or parent governor occurs an election should take place as soon as practicable. If a vacancy occurs in the latter half of a term it may be considered appropriate to wait until the beginning of the following term to hold an election, so that those who will become eligible at the start of the term are not disenfranchised."

This doesn’t of course in my eyes make what your head proposes acceptable with such a long wait, though it may be a sensible reason for a few weeks’ delay.