Chair of governors: responsibilities and powers

The key responsibilities of a chair of governors

The chair leads the governing board so that the board can do its three core functions: set the strategic direction, hold the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils, and oversee financial performance. The chair's job is to make the board effective at those, not to perform them personally.

In practice the role is:

• Representing the governing board externally, to the local authority or trust, to Ofsted, and to parents when the board must speak.
• Ensuring statutory compliance, from the register of interests to the publication of required information.

The governance guide for maintained schools published by the Department for Education lists the chair's own responsibilities as leading the governing body and ensuring its effectiveness, with support from the vice-chair and the governance professional; championing high standards of governance and continuous improvement; setting and agreeing the meeting agenda with support from the headteacher and the governance professional; and having honest conversations with governors, associate members and committee members who are not committed to their role or are ineffective in it.

The same guide makes the chair responsible for developing the board as a team. The chair sets expectations for professional standards of governance and needs to make sure governors understand what is expected of them, contribute their relevant skills, knowledge and experience, participate constructively in meetings, and receive appropriate induction, training and development. The guide also expects effective succession planning for the chair and vice-chair: a strategic process to identify, develop and prepare governors to move into either role.

The relationship with the headteacher. The DfE guide says the chair is usually responsible for the line management of the headteacher, and of the governance professional (clerk) for their governance role where they are employed directly by the school, though either function may be delegated to a panel or committee of the governing body. The chair can act as a sounding board and give the headteacher effective support, the guide says, as long as that does not interfere with the chair's and the board's responsibility for providing constructive challenge to the headteacher and their leadership team.

Headteacher appraisal and performance management. The DfE guide calls the governing body's appraisal and performance management of the headteacher a key part of its role, and it is a duty of the whole board rather than of the chair alone. Under the Education (School Teachers' Appraisal) (England) Regulations 2012, the governing body of a maintained school must appoint an external adviser to advise and support it on the headteacher's appraisal (regulation 4), set the headteacher's objectives for each appraisal period, normally twelve months, after consulting that adviser (regulations 5 and 6), and appraise the headteacher's performance against the applicable standards and those objectives (regulation 7). The objectives must be ones that, if achieved, will contribute to improving the education of pupils at the school and to any plan of the governing body designed to improve the school's educational provision and performance.

What powers does a chair of governors have?

Fewer than most people assume, and this is the useful part of the answer. Governance powers belong to the board, not to the chair. A chair has one vote like any other governor, plus a second or casting vote when the votes are equal. Decisions reserved to the board cannot be taken alone.

The chair also has no line-management authority over the rest of the school's staff: the headteacher manages everybody else. A chair who begins directing staff has stepped out of governance and into management, and it is the most common way a chair-headteacher relationship fails.

The chair's authority comes from the board, and the board can take it back. Under regulation 7 of the School Governance (Roles, Procedures and Allowances) (England) Regulations 2013, the governing body must elect a chair and a vice-chair from among its members, and must decide before the election the date on which their term of office will end. A governor employed at the school as a teacher or any other member of staff cannot be chair or vice-chair. The DfE guide adds that the roles can be shared where that is in the school's best interests, and that a board can advertise for a chair from outside the governing body, provided there is a vacant governor position for the new chair to be appointed to.

The vice-chair acts as chair for all purposes when the chair is absent from a meeting or the office is vacant (regulation 7(7)), and can take chair's action when the chair would be unable to act before the serious detriment is suffered (regulation 8(4)). A chair may resign at any time by written notice to the clerk. The governing body may remove the chair by resolution under regulation 9, unless the Secretary of State nominated the chair, and only where removal is an item of business on the agenda, and only after the governor proposing it has stated their reasons and the chair has had the opportunity to respond before withdrawing from the meeting.

What the chair does have is agenda control, the conduct of meetings, and the power to act between meetings in defined circumstances – which is the next section.

What is chair's action, and when can it be used?

Chair's action is the power for a chair to take a decision on the board's behalf between meetings. It is narrow by design, and in a maintained school there is a single test, in regulation 8 of the School Governance (Roles, Procedures and Allowances) (England) Regulations 2013: the chair must be of the opinion that a delay until the earliest meeting of the board, or of the committee holding the function, that could reasonably be arranged would be likely to be seriously detrimental to the interests of the school, a pupil or their parent, or a person who works at the school.

Inconvenience is not serious detriment. Something that has been known about for three weeks and left until the day before a deadline should have gone to a meeting: if the test is met by then, the chair may still act, but needing to is a governance failure rather than a shortcut.

Where it is used properly, three things follow: the decision must be within the board's own powers, it must be reported to the board – in writing and as soon as possible, the DfE's governance guide says, rather than left for the next meeting – and it should be recorded in the minutes as chair's action with the reason it was necessary. Some matters cannot be taken by chair's action at all: in a maintained school these include discontinuing the school, approving the first formal budget plan of the financial year and suspending a governor, which regulation 19(1) of the same Regulations bars the board from delegating to any individual. Regulation 8 lets the chair act only on functions that can be delegated to an individual and on those relating to pupil exclusions, which regulation 19(2) otherwise keeps from individuals.

Can a chair of governors suspend a headteacher?

This is the question the role is most often searched for, and the answer is a qualified yes with heavy conditions.

Suspension of a headteacher is normally a decision for the governing board, and in maintained schools the power sits with the board rather than the chair. A chair may be able to suspend using chair's action where a delay would be likely to be seriously detrimental – a safeguarding allegation is the usual case – but it must be reported to the board (regulation 20), in writing and as soon as possible, as the previous section sets out.

Suspension is a neutral act, not a disciplinary sanction or a finding of any kind, and it should be recorded as such. In practice a chair facing this should take advice from the local authority or trust and the school's HR provider before acting, not afterwards. It is the single decision where getting the process wrong causes more damage than the underlying issue.

Chairing meetings effectively

A governing board meeting that runs on time and reaches decisions is almost entirely a function of preparation.

1. Agree the agenda with the clerk, with a purpose against each item: for decision, for assurance, or for information. Items with no stated purpose expand to fill the meeting.
2. Get papers out at least seven clear days ahead, as regulation 13 requires, and expect them to be read. A board that is briefed in the room cannot hold anyone to account.
3. Draw the decision explicitly. "So we are agreeing X, with Y to report back in November" – said aloud, so the clerk can minute it and nobody leaves with a different understanding.
4. Manage the dominant and the silent. A board where two people speak is not a board.
5. Take declarations of interest at the start, and record what was done about them.

The clerk, whom the DfE guide calls the governance professional, is the chair's other key working relationship. Under regulation 13 of the 2013 Regulations, the clerk convenes meetings, complying with any direction from the governing body or the chair, and must send each governor and the headteacher written notice, the agenda and the papers at least seven clear days in advance, unless the chair determines that urgent matters justify a shorter period; the chair cannot shorten the notice for a meeting to consider removing the chair or vice-chair, suspending a governor or discontinuing the school. The clerk must not be a governor or the headteacher (regulation 10), and the DfE guide says the clerk receives direction from, and is accountable to, the governing body, normally through the chair, and recommends that the chair appraises the clerk's governance support.

Our guides on minute taking and conflict of interest policies cover the two records that make the rest of it defensible later.

The decisions taken between meetings

Chair's action is the formal route for acting between meetings, and it is used a handful of times a year. Informal decision-making between meetings happens constantly: a question in a governors' group chat, a call with the headteacher, three governors settling something on a Sunday evening.

That is normal and largely unavoidable. The difficulty is that the minute book then records only the ratification, so the board's own record of why it decided something can be thinner than the decision deserved. When a decision is later questioned – by Ofsted, by a parent, by a tribunal – the reasoning that would defend it sits somewhere the school does not hold.

Two practical responses. Bring anything settled informally back with its reasoning rather than just its conclusion, so the minute carries the substance. And be honest about whether the place those conversations happen belongs to the school at all.

Questions people ask

What are the roles and responsibilities of governors?

The governing body's core functions, set by regulation 6(1) of the School Governance (Roles, Procedures and Allowances) (England) Regulations 2013, include ensuring that the school's vision, ethos and strategic direction are clearly defined, that the headteacher performs their responsibilities for the educational performance of the school, and that the school's financial resources are used soundly, properly and effectively. The DfE's governance guide adds that the governing body has legislative responsibility and strategic oversight for safeguarding.

Are governors above headteachers?

Collectively, yes: in a maintained school the headteacher is accountable to the governing body and must comply with any reasonable direction it gives, under regulation 6(5) and (6) of the same 2013 Regulations. Governors do not run the school, though: the DfE's governance guide says the governing body is accountable for all strategic decisions and must hold the headteacher to account for the day-to-day running of the school, while the headteacher is responsible for operational matters.

How powerful are school governors?

Collectively, governors hold real authority: in a maintained school the governing body is accountable for all strategic decisions and retains overall legal responsibility for the decisions it delegates. Individually, they hold very little: the chair must not act alone in carrying out the governing body's functions except by chair's action, and individual governors have no automatic right to enter the school whenever they wish.

Does a chair of governors get paid?

Not in a maintained school, beyond expenses: Part 6 of the 2013 Regulations provides only for allowances covering expenditure necessarily incurred to perform a governor's duties, paid by a governing body with a delegated budget on provision of a receipt, with mileage at no more than HMRC's approved rate. The exception is a governor the Secretary of State appoints to a school eligible for intervention, who may be paid remuneration under section 67 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006.

Who is above the chair of governors?

The governing body as a whole: the chair has one vote, plus a casting vote when votes are equal under regulation 14 of the 2013 Regulations, and the board may remove the chair by resolution under regulation 9. Outside the board, where a maintained school is eligible for intervention, section 67 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 lets the Secretary of State appoint additional governors and nominate one of them as chair in place of the elected chair.

Where to read the official guidance

The DfE's governance guides are the starting point: the governance guide for maintained schools and the governance guide for academy trusts, which replaced the Governance Handbook when it was withdrawn in March 2024. The National Governance Association publishes the most practical role descriptions and training for chairs. Your local authority or trust will have its own scheme of delegation, which is what actually determines what your board may delegate to you.

This page is a summary, not legal advice. A suspension or a staffing decision is one to take advice on before acting.