All schools - Parent governors

Parent Governors needed

Oxfordshire County Council’s Education and Young People (EYP) Overview & Scrutiny Committee is looking for two parent governors at maintained schools in Oxfordshire to sit as members of the Committee to bring their own particular insight and expertise.

If you sit on your maintained school’s governing board as a parent governor and would also like the chance to make a real impact county-wide, we would love to hear from you. The Committee is made up of backbench councillors (i.e., not members of Cabinet who run the Council) and six non-councillors who meet at County Hall, Oxford, to receive reports and presentations and ask questions of decision-makers with a view to making improving services.

After scrutinising the reports, the Committee can make recommendations to the decision-makers suggesting what changes could be made. The decision-makers are then legally required to respond and to explain their response. There are five main scrutiny committees and EYP looks at the following areas:

  •  All services and preventative activities/initiatives relating to children, young people, education (including Home to School Transport and Special Educational Needs and Disability), and support of families
  • The Council’s statutory functions in relation to children’s social care and safeguarding. This includes public health as they relate to children and young people where they are not covered by the Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee
  • Matters relating to care leavers and the transition between children’s and adult services
  • The welfare of unaccompanied young asylum seekers
  • Services for Young Carers. 

As you can see, the Committee covers a vast range of things that directly affect you, your child/ren, and your school. The Committee will probably meet five times during the period from June 2024 to May 2025, generally on a Friday morning for about three hours. Those putting themselves forward should be able to demonstrate that they have:

  • Some understanding of the Oxfordshire education system
  • The ability to take a view on how children’s and education services affect the whole of Oxfordshire
  • Willingness to undertake training
  • Willingness to undergo a DBS check, if aged 16 or over, or provide one undertaken in the last 12 months, to sign a Register of Interests, and to abide by relevant aspects of the Council’s Members’ Code of Conduct
  • Not been a member or employee of the Council at any time during the last two years (including being a teacher or other staff member at an Oxfordshire maintained school) 
  • Candidates may not be a councillor at any level nor an MP. 

If working with councillors to make services the best they can be, please email scrutiny@oxfordshire.gov.uk by 21 May 2024 setting out in no more than one side of A4 why you’d like to be involved and what you feel you can bring to the table.

If more than two parent governors apply, an election will be held. If you would like further information, please email that address or telephone Richard Doney, Scrutiny Officer, on 07745 210056.