Last week, we reported that the NSW Board of Studies, Teaching & Educational Standards (BOSTES) introduced a registration standard requiring schools to have policies and procedures in place for proper governance by the school board. This week we examine the merits of this new policy and expand on what this new registration standard will mean for schools and their governance structures.

The first thing to note is that the requirement for good governance in schools is not a new concept.  In fact governance obligations are built into non-government school registration standards in most States & Territories albeit to varying degrees.   The Western Australian standards are probably the most comprehensive with 12 Criteria that set out specific standards requiring the implementation of risk management, compliance and complaints handling programs.   In ACT non-government schools are required to be "fully compliant" with the new national Workplace Health Safety laws as well as Australian Standard 4801 (AS4801).  NSW schools need to have in place specific policies regarding "outside tutors" and "external education providers". The list goes on.  Unfortunately there appears to be little consistency in approach.

The Good Governance Principles Standard AS (8000)

A Standard is a publication that is designed to provide a general framework and common guidelines for professionals. As we noted in last week's blog, there are a number of Standards which cover different areas of business and they are designed to assist professionals to achieve 'best practice' in their relevant areas of knowledge. The Good Governance Principles Standard, known as AS 8000 is designed to provide a generic guide for entities to develop and implement a system of organisational governance and board-level structures.

The issue with AS 8000 is that it does not directly assist school boards to achieve better governance. Its big on general statements such as boards, 'should be responsible for the strategic direction of the entity', but short on information that would assist with practical application. Moreover, where the standard does suggest relevant and useful guidance this is usually through other standards, such as the AS/NZ 4360 (now ISO AS/NZ 31000) Risk Management Standard, the AS 3806 Compliance Standard or the AS 4269 (now ISO AS/NZ 10002) Complaints Handling Standard all of which need to be obtained separately. It is also worth noting that AS 8000 is over a decade old (it was published in 2003).

The way forward?

Although any efforts to improve and standardise governance in schools, such as BOSTES' new registration requirement, is commendable, we have doubts as to whether the intended improvements can be achieved through using such a vague and outdated generic governance standard.

Experience with other regulatory regimes is that regulators such as APRA, ASIC, the ASX and AUSTRAC all provide quite specific guidance as to their expectations with respect to governance and in particular the implementation of core governance programs such as risk management, compliance and complaints handling.   Again in our experience the quality of governance outcomes within particular industry sectors ultimately comes down to the level of enforcement that is applied by the regulator.   To "encourage" compliance most regulators publish "enforcement guidelines" although we are not aware of any such guidelines being published by BOSTES.

What are your thoughts on the new NSW BOSTES requirement?  How do you think the registration guidelines in your State or Territory could be improved?  Leave a comment.  Let's get a conversation started.