The Scottish Government

Section 2: COMPOSITION OF BOARDS

This section sets out the categories of Board membership; deals with basic questions of eligibility; lays down the broad framework for elections along with Schedule 1; and provides for the Scottish Ministers to make regulations to determine matters of detail such as the composition of Boards.

Section 2(1) provides for three categories of membership of School Boards, (parent, staff and co-opted). Parent members are elected by parents of pupils at the school. "Parent" is defined in section 22(2) as amended by Schedule 4, paragraph 46 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 as a pupil's natural parent or any other person who is the pupil's guardian, who has parental responsibilities in relation to the pupil, or who has care of or is liable to maintain the pupil.

"Staff" members are elected by members of staff at the school. "Staff" is defined in subsection (13) of section 2 and means teachers and instructors (both full and part-time) employed by the authority for the purposes of providing education for more than 40% of the working hours of a full time teacher at the school. Provided they meet these criteria, members of staff such as nursery nurses and classroom assistants are eligible to be staff members. For the purposes of Board membership and also for staff elections, a headteacher is not a "member of staff". By virtue of regulations made under section 2(3)(b) ( see Part II) Boards of single teacher schools have no staff member. Headteachers are ineligible to vote in staff elections. (The headteacher is excluded from membership of the Board for his or her school under section 5(3)(b) of the Act.)

• Section 2 (3) paragraph (d) specifically provides that the regulations may enable education authorities:

  (i) to hold further elections or to direct the Board to make co-options. (For example, where additional members are required because of an increase in a Board's membership);
  (ii) to direct early termination of office. (In the case where a reduction in the membership is needed); and
  (iii) to fix the terms of office of new members. (This is intended to be used to maintain or restore the pattern of elections.)

( Part II of this guide deals with the regulations made under this subsection).

Section 2(4) provides that a person who is eligible to stand for election as a staff member of a Board may not stand for election as a parent member of the same Board. This restriction does not apply where the person is a member of staff of a school different from that attended by his or her children; nor does it affect the eligibility of a member of staff who is also a parent at his or her school to vote in elections for parent members.

Section 2(5) provides that a person who is eligible for election as a parent or staff member to a School Board shall not be eligible to be a co-opted member of that Board. Subsections (4) and (5) therefore make categories of Board membership mutually exclusive.

Section 2(6) prohibits membership of the same Board in more than one capacity at any one time. It should be noted that the provisions of this subsection do not prevent someone from serving, in the same or different capacities, on more than one Board.

Section 2(8) to (12) of the 1988 Act were repealed by section 28(1) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1996.

Section 2(13) defines the term "staff" for the purposes of Board membership. In addition to teachers (but not the headteacher) the term includes instructors involved in education. The definition covers both full-time and part-time members of staff employed at the school, whether or not they are also employed at other schools. It is possible therefore for a member of staff to be eligible to stand and to vote at elections to the School Board of more than one school. It should be noted, however, that administrative and domestic staff of the school are excluded and are therefore ineligible to stand for election as staff members and to vote in such an election. Since they are not "staff" for these purposes, such people would be eligible for consideration as co-opted members (provided that they were not parents of pupils at the school). The subsection also makes clear that the definition of "staff" includes peripatetic staff i.e. teachers or instructors who teach at more than one school and who travel between them in the normal course of their day-to-day employment, subject to the qualification that such staff may only stand and vote as staff members in schools where they would normally spend at least 40% of the working-time of a full-time teacher.