Clerks to corporations across England will be invited to a conference organised by the Department for Education and Skills as part of a consultation exercise leading to specialist training and qualifications.

“We are looking at the idea of some sort of qualification for clerks because we need to provide them with specific training for the very important work they do,” said John Healey, adult skills minister.

“We are planning to get clerks together with a conference organised by the DFES to discuss the way forward. “I can’t say when that will be but we won’t be leaving it too long, because this is very important and I want to get on with it.”

Training for clerks became a pressing issue in the 1990s when several colleges hit financial problems.

The move to a training programme for clerks would represent the latest in a series of recent reforms including the right of staff and governors to have between one and three representatives on corporation boards.

Ian James, the new clerk at Halton College in Cheshire and an adviser to the further education sector, welcomed the idea of national training. He is also clerk to the corporations of Wirral Metropolitan, Cricklade and Barnsley colleges, an adviser on quality and achievement to the Learning and Skills Development Agency, and he also holds workshops for governors and clerks.

Too many colleges still see the clerk as a glorified office administrator, he says. Training could help many clerks to be more effective and assertive. While college management remains the domain of the principal, clerks are supposed to be respected for their expertise on governance.

“Clerks come in all shapes and sizes,” he says. “In some cases they are seen as someone who does the photocopying, writes up the minutes and gets the agendas out. But I work on a consultancy basis as an adviser to the governors, and other people do those sorts of jobs for me.

“The problem is that there are a significant number of clerks who do not operate at a sufficiently high level and don’t have enough influence with the board. The training which is available to them is often not of sufficient quality and that needs to be improved.

“Clerks should be seen as reliable advisers in procedure. For that reason, I think it is a good idea to look at the way they are trained. It will help them move up the ladder in terms of their influence with the boards.”

Paul Mackney, general secretary of the lecturers’ union NATFHE supports training. “The problem is that clerks are not always seen to be independent,” he said. “This could be tackled if they have training in what it is they are supposed to be doing.”

It was the case of Halton college, which ran into financial trouble before it appointed Mr James, that finally led the Government to stress the importance of clerks as a bulwark against the kind of calamity the college once faced.

Halton’s fortunes have improved since it was given the lowest possible grade for governance in 1999. Last year, the former FE minister, Baroness Blackstone, warned against poorly administered boards of governors: “We don’t want any more cases like Halton,” she said.