Schools in Northern Ireland do not in too many cases have effective oversight of their activities and not enough is being done to prevent conflicts of interest.

At the NASUWT Northern Ireland Annual Conference in Belfast today members will hear concerns that conflicts of interest are increasingly arising in schools.

A motion to be debated will raise concerns that when conflicts of interest are being highlighted, nothing is done to remove the governor concerned.

It will call for a mechanism which will:

• Investigate complaints where governors have a conflict of interest.
• Investigate appointments of teacher and parent governors which have not followed a fair election process.
• Suspend all governing bodies which do not have regular meetings.

Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary, said: “Governors have an important role in terms of oversight in agreeing the strategic direction of schools..

“So it is vital that measures are in place to ensure effective oversight and when there are conflicts of interest there are procedures in place to ensure this is dealt with swiftly and effectively.

“Parents and staff must have confidence the system of governorship is fit for purpose.”

Justin McCamphill, NASUWT National Official Northern Ireland, said: “All too often we are seeing that the system of school accountability, through the Board of Governors is sadly lacking.

“There needs to be a robust system in pace that can effectively ensure governors are held accountable.

“It cannot be right also that governing bodies are not having regular meetings or there are question marks over the election process for governors.”