Today, the DfE updated their statutory requirements for what maintained schools and academies should have on their school website.

Today, the DfE updated their statutory requirements for what maintained schools and academies should have on their school website. It now includes the following:?

Collecting and publishing governing board diversity data

Diversity is important and we want governing boards to be increasingly reflective of the communities they serve.

We encourage schools to collect and publish governing board members’ diversity data. Information must be widely accessible to members of the school community and the public. Board members can opt out of sharing their information, including protected characteristics, at any given time including after publication.

Schools must ensure that individuals cannot be identified through the publication of data, particularly when board member levels are low. Read more about this in the?data protection toolkit for schools?and?Equality Act 2010: advice for schools.

There is no prescriptive way to collect diversity data from volunteers; this needs to be done on a voluntary basis. Schools may prefer to adopt a similar approach to how they collate the diversity data of pupils.

The National Governance Association (NGA) have some useful tools to help you collect and evaluate this information which can be found on their?Evaluating board diversity?page. This includes a?Diversity Indicators Form?and a guide to help?evaluate the responses.

The DfE have not stipulated how this should be presented but only that it should be “widely accessible” so our suggestion would be to include this information as a series of bar charts or pie charts.

For?small governing bodies?it may be impossible to publish this information without governors being identifiable so you may wish to include this heading with an explanation (see below for an example) that you do collect this information and what you do with it but publishing it would mean individual members of the governing body were identifiable.

Small School Example Statement

As a school we recognise that a diversity of thought, voices and perspectives is essential to good governance and the effective running of any organisation. We regularly collect diversity information from our governors and, depending on current data, can use this to:

• target recruitment to address gaps in experience and diversity
• develop and adapt board practices to ensure full participation
• prioritise training and awareness-raising in identified areas
• address potential ‘blind spots’ through seeking wider advice and perspectives on current and upcoming opportunities, challenges and risks

However, we are unable to publish this information as it would mean that individual members of our governing body are identifiable.?

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