Instrument of Government variance process

If your Governing Board is seeking a variance to your existing Instrument of Government (IoG), the process will be guided by the following legislation.

• For maintained schools: The School Governance (Constitution) (England) Regulations 2012
• For Federations: The School Governance (Federations) (England) Regulations 2012 and The School Governance (Constitution and Federations) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2016

Internal steps

1. The governing body (usually the Chair / a working group) should draft a proposal to vary the IoG with the rationale of strengthening the governance of the school. We recommend the proposal covers these two aspects:
   • To review and increase membership of the current Instrument of Government and review the skills capacity and training for governing board members to ensure you harness strong and confident governance (include table with the proposed changes)
   • To review the business of governance and ensure it provides absolute clarity such that everyone’s time, skills and expertise can be dedicated to strategic governance of our school improvement journey. (Ensuring recruitment of Co-opted Governors with skills and abilities that match the needs of the school)
2. The proposal, accompanied by the varied draft IoG, should be submitted to the next formal Governing Board as a paper to be discussed and approved.

External steps

3. Please submit the draft IoG accompanied by your rationale for the sought variance to governorservices@hackney.gov.uk and cc madalina.brockmann@hackney.gov.uk
4. The Governor Services Team / Legal team will review the proposal for compliance, and if the variance is compliant, will submit to the Director of Education for approval. We will be in touch if there are any queries or issues. This usually takes a maximum of 15 working days (indicative timing)
5. The Director of Education will review and approve the variance. This usually takes a maximum of 5 working days (indicative timing). The signed IoG is sent to our team. We send it to you as soon as possible and also store it on file.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions.