Boards are too critical to only think about when crises hit

Across England, governing boards provide the stability, scrutiny and long-term thinking that organisations rely on.

The evidence is clear: where governance is strong, leadership is better supported, organisations are more resilient and improvement lasts.

In many ways, governance in schools and trusts has never been stronger, with more skilled and diverse boards and greater confidence among governors and trustees.

Yet often it goes unrecognised. The system overall continues to treat governance as secondary. It is under-utilised where it should be central; tolerated where it should be treasured.

Fewer trust scandals doesn’t mean governance is perfect

In the early years of multi-academy trusts, governance was firmly in the spotlight. Ministers, inquiries and the media focused on failures and lessons learned.

As boards improved and major crises became rarer, the conversation gradually faded.

I am by no means mourning the lack of high-drama governance failures, but we shouldn’t confuse silence with safety.

When we stop actively examining if things are not right, we stop preventing failure.

Cross-sector evidence shows that even the most sustained, principled organisations can allow governance to meander quietly until crisis arrives.

Governance failure is rarely sudden. It’s gradual. Weak challenge goes unchecked. Unclear roles create confusion. Oversight gaps widen slowly. By the time intervention arrives, the damage has often already spread.

The evidence that the National Governance Association (NGA) has collected and written about in our new report – The Case for Governance – shows governance in England is largely succeeding.

Yes, in some places it could be better, but it is making a huge difference.

Yet we could get more from it.  It’s just not yet fully enabled. The Case for Governance is a pitch to let governance benefit the sector even more.

Other sectors treat boards as key infrastructure

Around 230,000 people currently govern schools and trusts, contributing more than 35 million hours annually. Yet the sector still doesn’t talk universally about governance as indispensable infrastructure.

Other sectors do. In big companies, charities and the NHS, governance sits at the heart of organisational life. It is invested in, respected and treated as fundamental. When governance fails, the consequences are taken seriously.

What makes education different? Nothing in principle. But in practice, we haven’t given governance the prominence it commands elsewhere. We acknowledge it matters without organising the system around that reality.

Four unique capacities of governance

The case we have built rests on what governance uniquely provides – four core capacities no other part of the system replicates.

1. Governance as leadership – not support to leadership, but leadership itself. The board is a collective sense-maker, with a generative function probing assumptions and shaping how problems are understood before solutions are proposed.
2. Governance as responsiveness – unlike inspection, governance is embedded within organisations and operates continuously. When budget pressures intensify, or workforce challenges emerge, good boards don’t just react – they anticipate, interpret and adapt.
3. Governance as answerability – decisions are explainable, justifiable and transparent. In an increasingly centralised system, boards anchor schools in the communities they serve. When governance provides this well, trust is maintained. When it fails, legitimacy erodes.
4. Governance as stewardship – careful, ethical care of public resources and long-term sustainability. Boards have no self-interest, making them focused on the bigger picture.

Weak boards mean risks go unnoticed

Our research is clear. Where governance is strong, organisations are more strategic, more resilient and better-equipped to navigate leadership change and complex decisions.

Where it is weak, leaders become isolated, risks go unnoticed and intervention becomes inevitable.

The real question is not whether governance matters, but whether the system is willing to treat it as essential infrastructure.

That means investing in capability, designing policy with governance in mind and building accountability systems which integrate boards rather than bypass them.

This is a pivotal moment. Not because governance is failing, but because its importance is growing while recognition lags behind.

Governance is not a safety net. It is the foundation of sustained success, and foundations only hold when they are deliberately built, maintained and valued.