Federation and collaboration of school governing bodies

One of the Government's key aims is to raise educational standards by encouraging schools to work together to share ideas and good practice. This could involve work on the curriculum, for example, but it might also include sharing and leadership across a number of schools, or a joint action to tackle inclusion issues. The Education Act 2002 invoked provisions allowing schools to federate or collaborate from September 2003 onwards. On 25 May 2007 new federation and collaboration regulations will come into effect and are available to view on the school standards website (a link can be found on this page).

Federation: Under the terms of the Act, federations are groups of two or more schools with a joint governing body. Each of the schools retains their separate individual identity but their individual governing bodies are dissolved and a new joint instrument of governance establishes a single federated governing body in their place. All maintained schools may establish joint governing bodies. This arrangement is termed a 'hard' governance federation by the DCSF because of the formal and binding commitments that are established.

Collaboration: The Act also provides for collaboration between schools, whereby the governing bodies of groups of maintained schools can meet or set up joint committees, including strategic committees, with delegated powers from the school’s individual governing bodies. The governing bodies may delegate any or all of their power to this committee but retain legal responsibility and corporate liability for all decisions taken on their behalf. This is termed a 'soft' governance federation.

The federation continuum is illustrated on the standards website along with information about federation and the range of collaboration.

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