A CHARITY set up to help recruit business governors to inner-city schools has so far found barely a tenth of the candidates needed, at a cost of nearly pound;750 a head, writes Karen Thornton.
Of the 321 people so far recruited by the School Governors’ One Stop Shop, only 73 had been allocated to schools by the end of September.
The organisation estimates there are 2,812 vacancies for co-opted and education authority governors in the first six Excellence in Cities areas it has targeted.
However, it remains confident that it will meet its target of 550 candidates by the endof the year, and believes far more recruits have already been placed with schools than its own figures suggest.
The one-stop shop was set up with government and business funding, to help tackle the inner-city governor crisis. It started work in January, and based on its expected annual running costs of up to pound;320,000 over nine months, its 321 recruits have cost nearly pound;750 a head to find.
Gordon Hewlett, vice-chairman of the National Governors’ Council, blamed the lethargy of local education authorities for some of the delays in getting candidates into schools.
