Welcome to Funding for Independent Schools
The Rogue Governor
A humorous view of the behind-the-scenes politics from an independent school governor
Spring term 2012
In your face, Dame Suzi. Eat my bespoke-tailored, pressed cotton shorts. What a tremendous victory for common-sense and anachronism, the tribunal ruling on the ISC’s judicial review of the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance in October was. I said all along that the commission’s half-baked waffle telling independent schools what they could and couldn’t do wouldn’t stand up to proper legal scrutiny and I was proved right.
OK, the debate over which bits of the guidance need changing will rage for centuries and there are plenty of commentators claiming that, actually, the 28-million-page verdict largely vindicates the commission’s position, but experts, eh? What do they know?
I can let you into a little secret now. No, not that one, that’s still sub judice. Another one. While I don’t expect the press to reveal “It’s Rogue Governor wot won it” across their covers, it was me wot won it. I have it on very good authority that evidence I gave to the legal eagles swung the decision in favour of the ISC. I say “evidence”, in truth it was more my standing in the street outside the Attorney-General’s window shouting “don’t let those do-gooder lefties tell us who we can and can’t benefit”. But I am sure it was decisive. It certainly got the interest of the police.
Little change?
Some of my fellow governors doubt that the ruling will change much at all apart from forcing some semantic tinkering of the commission’s printed wisdom and, as the dust settles, they may be correct. But ultimately I suspect it will be easy to determine who the real winners have been and will continue to be, especially if it keeps getting dragged through the courts. Yes, the lawyers. And they can sue me for saying so if they want.
Other than self-important charity regulators going around bloody regulating, trying to tell us how we can fudge things to secure tax breaks, at St Spufus we are thankfully out of the clutches of Michael Gove. But that doesn’t stop us casting a nervous glance at what havoc he’s reaping throughout mainstream schools. Being less constrained by a national curriculum, we have been able to provide a well-meaning and esoteric bias to a classical education – Latin, proper history (ie what Kings of England wore when banqueting) and dull but worthy poetry. However, if Gove manages to reintroduce such things for all schools, what is the point of our doing it? We risk blurring the distinctions of privilege if any old Wayne, Daz and Chardonnay can read Harry Potter books in a dead language.
You can’t trust an education secretary whose surname sounds like bad grammar. He should consider shoving his rose-tinted glasses well out of reach or else I will conjugate his irregular verbs: Goveo, Govare, Govavi, Govatus, Govaway.
Coup d’oeil
The only other thing of note recently has been an attempted coup. A splinter group of governors tried to move a motion of no confidence in me as chair. Apparently, I am “too preoccupied” with my own grievances and “manipulate” what goes on the agenda to “stifle” debate.
Complete nonsense, of course, and I quickly quelled any rebellion by simply not allowing any chat about the matter at our last board meeting. Those budgetary items on teachers’ biscuit allowances won’t discuss themselves, you know.
Autumn term 2011
Now firmly settled in as chair of the school’s governing body, our Rogue Governor aims to make his mark by putting forward his own agenda. Which means embarrassment and trouble for the school
I have settled comfortably into my role as chair. Indeed, literally so. I decided that I needed a special padded seat for governor meetings so ordered one off eBay (expenses, naturally). I have made it clear to my fellow governors that we should all consider ourselves as equals and I think my superior personal pew helps me assert my authority in implementing this philosophy.
I have been for specialist chair training. And I don’t mean health and safety rubbish about posture. No, I mean training on how to chair meetings. It was a waste of time, frankly. Six new chairs in the room, looking at their watches all day thinking “can you hurry this along a bit please, I‘ve got things to do”.
What?
Apparently, you are not supposed to use the post of chair to drive your own agenda, which is surely the main perk of the role. Instead you’re supposed to let others speak and not force your own views on the meeting. Which was a bit of a problem for me in our recent gathering as the stuff I wanted to talk about was far more important than boring procedural stuff that littered the agenda.
One thing that I have been keen to address is the report of independent schools “pimping” out pictures of their fruitiest A level girlies to national newspapers. What a nonsense this is. I contacted every newspaper I could with a portfolio of St Spufus’s finest 18-year-olds and all were rejected. Therefore I have proposed adding a minimum level of prettiness for new female entrants as we are missing out on some serious money here. If we are able to admit some chavvy beauties from lower class stock, it might help us display public benefit.
But apparently we can’t do this because it is “demeaning”, “insulting” and “slightly creepy”. Some of the female governors were particularly indignant about my brainwave, alleging it is sexist.
Setting an example
The other thing occupying us at St Spufus is the upcoming Independent School Awards. St Spufus has entered every category, even the ones it isn’t eligible for on the “you never know” principle. Unfortunately, we look to be out of the running in the Most Fraudulent Bursar category because our last one got caught so is automatically disqualified for not being fraudulent enough. I suspect this technicality will catch most potential winners out and as a result there will be no one receiving this prestigious gong. Next year I will encourage our new bursar to fake details on the nomination form and make up some facts about pinching money to boost his chances of winning. At least I think there’s an award for it, isn’t there? If not, there should be.
I wasn’t going to attend the Awards dinner in November myself – it is unforgiveable that there isn’t a Most Promising Chair prize, in fact even a Least Promising one would have suited me fine. And, frankly, a night in the Midlands with motorcycles and people from other schools fills me with dread. But I have always been a fan of Roger Black’s fringe, so may go if there is a decent feed and I get a freebie. Perhaps as a reward from the organisers for giving the evening a plug in any column I may write...
Summer term 2011
Our previous chair had to resign suddenly after an incident in the playground, where he lost his temper with the parent of one of our richest, sorry, most gifted pupils.
There are conflicting reports about what was said but everyone agrees it was something really offensive, the likes of which St Spufus will simply not tolerate, especially when rich, sorry, gifted students are involved. One eyewitness swears blind the words “Toby Young” were uttered, but that is too filthy to contemplate. Incidentally, I hear that a group of parents in West London is setting up its own Toby Young, free to operate outside of the limitations of the official one, but I digress.
Some of my fellow governors complained that I wasn’t up to becoming the chair (“couldn’t chair a meeting with himself to decide what colour pants to wear”). What a nerve, brazenly insulting me while I am in the room. They could have at least waited until I had dozed off again. But they were talked round by a persuasive argument from others, which I didn’t completely understand, but involved the phrases “bloodless coup”, “he’ll be our puppet” and “we can always get rid of him when he bombs during the annual chair’s appraisal”.
Whoops, apocalypse
So, a new era of knockabout, chaotic governance begins at St Spufus. One thing I am pleased we won’t have to contend with is the vetting and barring scheme, which has sensibly been dropped. I am all for safeguarding children but these proposals whereby anyone working within 14 miles of children were to undergo checks to account for all of their movements at all times were over the top.
When I was at school, we didn’t have all this safeguarding nonsense and nothing serious happened. Nothing we were allowed to talk about anyway. We had a form of self-regulation where, if a teacher looked a bit dodgy, he would be mercilessly lambasted as suspect whether it was true or not. Sure, a number of promising careers were cruelly ended for no justifiable reason, but it is better to be safe than sorry.
I fear the repercussions of this are going to be felt more in the state sector and I am thankful, as a parent, that I don’t have to worry about dangerous individuals prowling around and profoundly damaging my kids’ educational experience. But enough about Michael Gove’s policies. If he really does manage to screw the system up, it could lead to a greater demand for places at independent schools. Which will mean we can raise our fees. Result.
Keep your nose out
And just when we thought that we were making progress on public benefit (by not doing much about it) a bunch of do-gooders called the Education Review Group has stuck its nose in, saying that the harm caused by independent schools taking gifted pupils out of the state system needs to be taken into account in this whole sham of a debate.
They have also commented that we stifle social mobility. And quite right too. We don’t want poor people getting hold of the concept do we? And who does the Education Review Group think it is anyway? Some sort of group reviewing education? May I remind them that our esteemed education minister, the aforementioned Mr Gove, secured a place at an independent school via a scholarship.
And who would argue that his subsequent high-flying political career is not in the public benefit...
Spring term 2011
At the time of writing, the ISC is pressing on with the judicial review of the Charity Commission’s guidance. I hear that in the event of this being unsuccessful, the next step will be to ask for a judicial review of the judicial review, and then keep up an infinite cycle of legal challenges. This would allow independent schools to carry on as they have for centuries without having to worry about unnecessary bursaries, while the lawyers argue the toss forever.
Not surprisingly, this legal filibustering technique was devised by a lawyer charging by the hour.
Good move?
It’s interesting to see that the Attorney-General has also waded into the debate by asking the Charity Tribunal to have a “quick gander at this here guidance, would you chaps (and chapesses)?”.
Some people think that having the decision referred in this way means the final judgement will be free of any of the class-based anti-independent school politicking that has tended to obscure the legal considerations of the whole debate.
And I am sure the Attorney-General, Dominic Grieve MP (Conservative), educated at Westminster School, would agree.
But if the ass that is the law does reach back and bite our behinds, we are making contingency plans at St Spufus. In preparation for the fact that we may need to find some spare cash to subsidise those outside our core pupil base, our new bursar has been analysing our eclectic asset base. He’s discovered some documents in a box that suggest we actually own a tea shop in Devon, half a Cornish tin mine and Wales. Obviously, the latter is of only curiosity value but the first two could raise quite a bit of money if we can sell them without upsetting the locals.
Common as muck
The reputational risk a school runs by letting in so called “commoners” was brought into sharp focus following the media storm about one of our ex-pupils last term. Her engagement to a famous polo player caused a tremendous fuss.
Much was made of the fact that this particular alumna was not sufficiently top drawer and somehow the press drew parallels between the first part of her surname and the social class she is from. Which is ridiculous. As her parents, Mr and Mrs Chavton, pointed out. Some governors felt the whole thing was a slur on the standards we instil in pupils here and typical of what might happen if public benefit pollutes the well-oiled waters of privilege. But as I commented at a board meeting, it could have been worse.
Kate Chavton could have got hitched to someone truly embarrassing and dysfunctional, like a member of the Royal Family.
Other than that, life at St Spufus carries on despite worries about pupil numbers and fees. I have used my appointment to a sub-committee assessing the headteacher’s performance to “argue with him persuasively” about my latest genius idea. When “remuneration scales can be revised downwards, you know” was mentioned he agreed heartily to “boost” our academic results by simply adding an asterisk to everyone’s A-level A grade. It means we have fair leapt up the rankings on the league table that we don’t agree with and only take any notice of if we are doing well in it.
Autumn term 2010
If I had the misfortune to send my children to a state school, I would be petrified. Having said that, I have toyed with the idea of setting up a school where I and other parents educate our kids on the internet to save cash. I will be using the next meeting to lobby fellow governors to join me in this endeavour.
Gove’s ideas to enable parents to get involved with running schools (they could call themselves, oooh, I don’t know, governors) are radical and, while liberating, could have an impact on both kitchen sink comps and us, la crème de la snatched milk, if parents see it as a way of avoiding huge fee levels.
Builder’s bum
Mind you, while the focus has been on the state provision of learning, there was a scare at St Spufus in July. Gove’s list of schools whose building projects will be shelved following the axing of the Building Schools for the Future programme was so muddled that our project to rebuild the tuck shop somehow appeared on it, even though it has been promised no government cash. Gove promised to apologise to each school affected by the cock-up. I hope Cameron made him do it in his pants and vest as punishment. Though I cannot see why all of these state schools are whingeing. Under Big Society, parents with DIY skills can volunteer to help by doing a spot of decorating and roofing at weekends.
One thing that has gone quiet is how the Tories will tackle the thorny issue of public benefit, though this has by no means gone away. The ISC leader has talked up a legal challenge to the Charity Commission’s interpretation of the law and is believed to have instructed Claims Direct to take on the case on a no-win, no-fee basis: “Have you had an accident at work? Have you had to educate people who can’t pay their way?”
Softly, softly
The Charity Commission has a new chief executive and I have suggested to my fellow governors that we have “a quiet little word in Sam Younger’s shell-like” round the back of the quad-bike sheds so that he is clear where we think this nonsense should end.
The other threat to the relative hiatus on public benefit enforcement will be the Labour leadership battle. The one who is like an elder version of his younger brother has come out with some tub-thumping private-school-bashing to appeal to the grassroots support, and if Diane Abbott gets anywhere, her strong leftwing ethos will mark her out as a feisty opponent. Apart from the fact she sends her kids to an independent school, luckily.
Elsewhere we have been discussing the ISC research which shows that schools that offer 30 or more activities outside the classroom produce better GCSE results.
Apparently, participation in extracurricular activities raises pupils’ self-esteem, though try telling that to the poor buggers in our under-15 rugby team who lost their games by more than 50 points last year. Still, I am all for trying anything to boost academic achievement and, in the spirit of DIY education and Big Society, I say let the kids choose what they want to get up to in their own time. Sneaking off to the local pub for an underage cider never did me any harm. Which just leaves another 29 trivial pursuits to come up with.
Summer term 10
Things have been about as calm as Dame Suzi Leather reading the Daily Mail round here. It all started when one of my fellow governors became suspicious about the honesty of our bursar. Said governor is a manager at a local firm of auditors and so fancies himself as a bit of an expert. At our first meeting after Christmas he tried to dazzle us with technical accounting jargon such as “discrepancies in fund balances”, “bloody big hole in the accounts” and “I think the bursar’s dodgier than an MP’s expense claim”.
I argued that this was unlikely. He doesn’t look at all shifty and has an honest face. Upstanding is his middle name (I blame the parents). He is a respected pillar of society, always dresses in nice suits, dines at the best restaurants and drives a sports car. Why would anyone suspect him of having his hand in the scholarship till?
But some of my less trusting colleagues were concerned and suggested we get the police in. We all agreed that it was crucial how we managed the situation to avoid adverse publicity. The chair immediately suggested we consulted our crisis management policy, but apparently it got destroyed in a fire.
Transparency?
Some governors were all for being upfront and open, as covering it up would only make it look worse. I couldn’t disagree more. There is nothing wrong with a cloak of secrecy. Wrapped in a veil of confusion. Housed in a room of smoke and mirrors. Unless you get found out, of course, then you end up looking a bit John Terry.
I argued for keeping as quiet as possible and felt that on no account should parents find out. After all, how their hard-earned fees are being siphoned off illegally is none of their business. It would reflect badly on us as governors if people felt our “on the nod” internal financial controls were not sufficiently robust.
As it transpired, matters were taken out of our hands as the police investigation revealed that the bursar was the Bernie Madoff of the independent schools sector and oversaw more fiddling than the organiser of an Irish folk festival.
Breaking point
Of course, the Old Bill never deal with these things tactfully, rocked up during the lunch break and dragged the bursar out of his office. It was particularly embarrassing as we had some prospective parents being shown round. One can only imagine what conclusions they were drawing as a pimply constable shouted to his boss: “I’ve got his PC, Sarge. I bet there’s some right dodgy stuff on the hard drive.” I am sure I overheard one parent say: “What a disgrace. That PC’s only got a Pentium II processor. They’re so behind the times here.”
And public benefit is still skulking around like a fifth former on a fag break. Interesting to see Eton take the lead by allowing local chavs access to their famous wall, which is now adorned with some pretty obscene graffiti. Badly spelt as well, but that’s a state education for you. I guess the ultimate test of Eton’s public benefit credentials may come down to whether or not you think a cabinet stuffed with its former pupils is a good thing for the country or not.
Spring term 10
St Spufus continues to get involved, nay mired, in well-publicised controversy and we governors have had to keep our eyes very firmly on a number of different-shaped balls. Firstly, we were one of a number of schools that refused to submit details of exam results for the compilation of league tables.
It’s bad enough having to tell pupils how they did without everyone else sticking their nose in. Heaven forbid that parents should find out that their hard-earned fees don’t necessarily guarantee academic excellence. Some 25 independent schools have taken part in the boycott and while it is pleasing that we have been placed fourth in the rankings of who whinged most vociferously about it, we must try harder. The governors have pledged to go for top spot next time.
Foreign money
The next big worry is that tighter controls on obtaining visas mean it is harder for affluent foreign students to come to the UK. This is affecting our pupil numbers and ability to get some cushy foreign funding. My instinct is to take the Daily Mail line that we need strict immigration controls to stop the flood of kids coming into the country and burdening the tax payer. Next thing we know, the state will try and foist the offspring of Polish plumbers onto us in the name of public sodding benefit.
But obviously it’s a different matter when we are being denied our slice of exotic, cosmopolitan rich foreigners who all add to St Spufus’ rich cultural diversity. A balance needs to be struck. And the fulcrum is wealth.
Longer terms
Speaking of public benefit, everyone’s favourite quangocrat Dame Suzi announced recently that independent schools have as long as five years to get their house in order in terms of demonstrating it. I made the point very forcibly that we should just sit tight and do nothing for the time being. For one thing, there’s no point providing extra public benefit for several more years if we don’t have to yet. And since the Tories announced a shoot-on-sight policy on Leather, it is unlikely that it will be such a big worry anyway once there has been a change in Government.
Our treasurer reveals that we have been in touch with a group of other schools to try and determine a common level of public benefit. By swapping information we can hopefully fix PB at a workable threshold. This is all in the early stages but involves a complex system with points for scholarships offered to different classes of poor (three chavs = an oik, double score for BME groups or the disabled), charity work in the local community, access to sporting facilities etc. But don’t tell the OFT.
Finally, we have been unravelling yards of red tape and grappling with all the bureaucracy we are expected to deal with. This is what one of my fellow governors calls the “minutiae of running the school”, and is only beloved by the type of people who use words such as “minutiae”. There are so many procedures, policies and regulations we have to discuss and agree.
The chair keeps banging on about our terms of reference, which I always assumed was having to look up “Michaelmas” in a dictionary. And, as part of our reporting duties to the Charity Commission, we have had to undertake a test involving scrawling affirmative symbolism inside printed squares. It may be time-consuming, but as with many box-ticking exercises, we have no choice but to comply.
Autumn term 09
Well, it’s all been happening and no mistake. No doubt you will have seen the news that St Spufus was one of the independent schools that failed the Charity Commission’s pilot round of public benefit tests. Apparently, we are not providing the right number of bursaries and scholarships (or “cursories” and “blue collarships” as I call them) to kids from the estate.
The commission has also called into question whether allowing some local herberts to hit golf balls at pigeons on our rugby pitches once a term really constitutes providing access to sporting facilities. But they make enough of a mess of the turf as it is without extending the privilege.
What level?
Unsurprisingly, this has taken up a lot of time at recent governor meetings. Part of the problem is that while the commission says we aren’t doing enough, they haven’t issued any guidance as to what percentage of places should be funded for the poor. We need to know what I call the “lip service watermark” at which we can be seen to be offering public benefit, then everyone will be happy.
I argued forcibly at a recent meeting that we certainly don’t want to take the risk of offering more than we need to. “After all, we are not a charity,” I concluded, although I was reminded by the chair that, in fact, we are.
If you are to believe the Daily Mail, and to be honest I do, it’s all the fault of Dame Suzi Leather, a glamorous New Labour quangocrat apparatchik ex-public-school-head-girl who has been parachuted in to act on the social engineering whims of lefty backbenchers. One would think that such important decisions about charitable status would be made on careful examination of charity law, but apparently not. How it works is that Dame Suzi sits behind a big desk and decides on a school-by-school basis which ones are to be picked on, using a complex process based on whether the school regularly beats her own alma mater at hockey or if she likes the school crest or not.
You simply cannot let people like this take such important decisions. And by people like this, I mean women. I have had one bright idea of how to keep the oiks out.
Sure, give them their scholarships, but increase the price of school uniforms tenfold and then implement a strict “no tracksuit” rule. The bursar has said he will look into this but I got the distinct impression that this was said to shut me up.
The swines
All of this kerfuffle came hot on the heels of our very own outbreak of swine flu. My fellow governors were terribly concerned when Forbes-Whittington of the fifth form got all sniffly following his holiday in Cancun. They came over all “health and safety” this, and “well-being of pupils” that, and “ooh, what will this do for our reputation?”
I put it in no uncertain terms. Give matron stacks of jollop, ban burritos and tortilla chips, sack Carlos the caretaker and then make as much publicity out of it as possible. By appearing on every single news channel we have raised the profile of St Spufus immeasurably, and this, combined with the cachet of being one of the first independent schools to be struck by this year’s must-have media-spread virus, will surely increase our cachet with prospective parents. We can raise fees on the back of it, and it may even put some of the plebs off taking up the bursary places that it looks like we will now be Leather-bound to offer.
Summer term 09
When I applied I felt that as an alumnus of St Spufus I should help in any way I could. Any suggestions that I was driven by a wish to secure my eldest a place in the hockey first 11 are well wide of the mark. My background as a successful businessman (Shropshire’s biggest radiator-cover retailer – FACT) will be invaluable to the school in the coming months.
I must confess I expected a get-together every term or so to rubber-stamp the accounts, check the head isn’t getting carried away with power and generally confirm that the school is running smoothly. But we had three meetings last term and the amount of stuff we are expected to keep on top of is a joke.
Take this whole public benefit lark. It came as a bit of a shock at my first meeting to discover I had completely misunderstood what this was about. I thought that some schools were facing pressure for providing too much public benefit. After all, what is the advantage of paying huge fees to get your kid a private education and a headstart in life if schools have to offer bursaries and use of facilities to the hoi polloi as well? But no, my fellow governors are concerned about how they can be seen to meet strict public benefit requirements laid down by the Charity Commission of all people, though what it has got to do with them, I don’t know.
Keep our advantage
There was lots of talk about providing a level playing-field, but I said in no uncertain terms that, public benefit or no public benefit, I was against any changes in this area. St Spufus has had considerable success in rugby competitions over the years due to the knowledge of our uneven pitch – and long may that continue.
The other main talking point was the effect of the recession, with fears that less-rich bankers will mean fewer fee-paying parents. We are shown a paper the bursar has prepared, trying to calculate what fee increases are needed to remain solvent without pricing ourselves out of the market. He’s obviously a clever chap and has devised all sorts of fancy formulae and potential scenarios. But, as I point out, what we should do is simply ring up a few other bursars and agree a fair level with them. However, apparently, we are not allowed to do this after a hoo-hah a few years back about cartels.
We keep hearing that the buzzwords for schools and other charities are merger and collaboration. I am completely opposed to merging with any rival schools (St Spufus’ motto isn’t “in solitude constamus” for nothing). I would even argue that fee-fixing is exactly the sort of creative collaboration that the economic crisis calls for.
A number of my fellow governors seem to lay great store in what a certain individual thinks of financial matters, as apparently he has been elected for his expertise in this area. But they must be mistaken as I am sure he is a stockbroker.
One final issue we have been debating is the size of our board. The more the merrier, I say. We currently have 24 governors. Why not make that 44? Up the levels of expertise! But no, our chair is proposing a smaller board for reasons of “effective decision-making”. Everyone else agrees with him and a decision is speedily made to cut the number of governors to 20 over the next year: a process that rather invalidates his argument for doing it in the first place.
