Question: Should a governor be able to sit on an interview panel if he / she has a conflict of interest?

In this case, a member of staff left the school after a very long-term sick period. The chair and another governor, good friends with this ex-staff member, then employed him in another role. When his old job came up, the two governors were then on the interview panel and had the majority vote. The woman who had covered the sick-leave (and who had conflicts with the ex-staff member) was interviewed but did not get the job, despite having more experience than the successful applicant who is another friend of the governors.

Joan Sallis replies: There is a clear rule about any governor who might be held to be prejudiced one way or another, who might have an axe to grind or something to gain from the outcome, being obliged to declare that interest so as to be excluded from a decision which might for that reason be prejudiced. The governor comes clean about the interest and either declines to be involved or seeks guidance from the majority present.

Where it’s a case of possibly benefiting (e.g. from the award of a contract) or definable relationship (relative or partner), the decision is fairly straightforward – you keep out. Where it is merely friendship it is a bit more difficult because in a really chummy governing body they will all be friends of each other and quite a lot of the staff as well as with the lawyers and shopkeepers if it’s a small town, so who does the task?

If the two people you refer to were far and away the closest to the two candidates it would be clear-cut and they should do the decent thing probably, but I would guess your case was not quite so clear cut. Anyway, the governors concerned may well have been more experienced, and a bit of knowledge of past performance may have been considered desirably fair to the person who had been sick. After all someone who has been on sick-leave (I am a bit confused about why she was regarded as a ‘competitor’ at all unless she had resigned but don’t know the circumstances) might have a somewhat stronger ‘entitlement’ than a temporary stand-in if that’s how it was.

Sorry not to be more definite but I don’t think it’s a straightforward case of declaring interest at all. The important thing is that there are rules about declaring an interest and a governor with an exceptionally strong relationship with anyone in the frame should do so and if necessary let colleagues judge.

Even more important perhaps, since schools are small communities and there are many relationships of different kinds and only a small number of people to choose from for any task, we should all be very focussed in performing a task of this kind, try to concentrate on facts and fairness and the requirements of the job, and what can be justified objectively if it is ever challenged.