The Governor Oversight Test
Twelve questions on whether your board can see the institution it is accountable for.
A 12-statement self-assessment across 4 sections, scored out of 24. Around 6 minutes with a senior team. Score each statement No, In part or Yes, read the band, and use the lowest section as the place to start.
How to use this
Oversight fails quietly. Boards receive summaries rather than sources, ask scheduled questions rather than live ones, and discover exposure at renewal. These twelve questions test visibility, challenge, provenance and continuity.
Score each statement No (0), In part (1) or Yes (2). Answer for the institution as it behaves this term, not as it is described in policy. Where two people disagree, the lower score is the more useful one.
| No | In part | Yes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Governors see spend, usage and outcomes for their own school, not a curated summary. | |||
| 2The board can see which suppliers hold pupil data and on what terms. | |||
| 3A governor can ask an unscheduled question and get an answer without staff assembling it by hand. | |||
| 4Papers state their sources, so a figure can be traced to where it came from. | |||
| 5The board has declined or reversed a management proposal in the last two years. | |||
| 6At least one governor can read a data protection or licensing term and say what it means. | |||
| 7Model-generated content in board papers is labelled as such. | |||
| 8The board knows what would stop working if the primary supplier failed. | |||
| 9Contract renewal dates are visible to the board in advance, not reported after signature. | |||
| 10Succession is planned for the people who currently hold the institution's technical knowledge. | |||
| 11The board has agreed what it will not delegate, in writing. | |||
| 12New governors are inducted into the technology estate, not only into finance and safeguarding. |
Scoring by section
- Visibility
- Statements 1, 2, 3. Out of 6. Your weakest area is visibility. A board that receives summaries governs the summary, not the school. Ask for one unscheduled question to be answered with its source attached, and see how long it takes.
- Challenge
- Statements 4, 5, 6. Out of 6. Your weakest area is challenge. A board that has never declined a proposal is ratifying rather than governing. Build the capability to read a term and say what it means, on the board rather than in the office.
- Provenance
- Statements 7, 8, 9. Out of 6. Your weakest area is provenance. If the board cannot tell which figures a model produced, it cannot weigh them. Label model output in papers, and make renewal dates visible before they arrive.
- Continuity
- Statements 10, 11, 12. Out of 6. Your weakest area is continuity. Knowledge held by one person is an unrecorded risk with a resignation date. Write down what the board will not delegate, and induct new governors into the estate.
Reading the total
- 20–24 · Governing
- The board can see and challenge what it is accountable for. Protect that: oversight of this quality usually depends on two or three individuals, and rarely survives their departure by default.
- 13–19 · Partially sighted
- The board sees finance clearly and the technology estate through a summary. That is where exposure accumulates, because the terms that matter are signed in the gap.
- 7–12 · Ratifying
- The board is approving decisions it cannot independently examine. Ask for one traceable answer to one unscheduled question before the next meeting.
- 0–6 · Unsighted
- On this assessment the board cannot see the estate it is responsible for. This is common: nothing in the standard governance cycle asks a board for this capability. Start with the supplier list and the renewal dates.
Take this evaluation online to see your score against the anonymised sector benchmark at educave.ai. educave.ai · Free to copy, forward and use inside your institution, with attribution.