A couple of years ago skills audits were being promoted in different reports as a key tool for improving, as momentum built against the stakeholder model of governance and towards smaller, "professional" governing bodies.

Whatever your stance on the classic skills versus representation debate - and these are not mutually exclusive - a skills audit may have a valid role. But not in isolation.

Governors need skills to do their job but are not meant to be experts: they are volunteers and part of a collective group whose strength lies in their combined wisdom. They bring to schools "the precious light of ordinariness", to quote Joan Sallis. Even a highly skilled governing body has a limited amount of time to carry out its work and should not seek to take on tasks that are rightly the preserve of the school's leadership and management team.

That governors can and should seek to identify and enhance their skills is not in doubt. It matters, though, that they do so for practical reasons in the wider context of other aspects of their work and purpose. These can be summarised as the seven S's identified by McKinsey:

• Strategy: the plan devised to achieve the vision


• Structure: the way the governing body is structured and who reports to whom


• Systems: the common activities and procedures that governors engage in to get the job done


• Shared Values: the core values of the governing body shown in its culture and general work ethic


• Style: the style of leadership adopted


• Staff: the governors and their general capabilities


• Skills: the collective and individual skills and competencies of the governors

There is no point focusing on our skills to the exclusion of everything else, especially if we're unclear about our shared values, which underpin everything else.

The video clip below includes a discussion about skills versus representation.

Look on the downloads page for the document "Skills Audit for a Governing Body" which will guide you through the process and make sure you're doing it in the right context.

New video page coming soon...

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