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Executive Summary
Background
This research has been commission by the Scottish Government with the aim of identifying the views of the newly formed Parent Councils and other relevant organisations on the shape and character that a national body might take to represent the views of Parent Councils.
The research comprised of:
- Survey by questionnaire of all Parent Councils
- Depth interviews with 8 key stakeholders
- 4 discussion workshops held with parents
491 responses were received to the questionnaire. This represents a response rate of 20% of the Parent Councils in existence and was evenly spread across type of school, rural / urban environments and socio/economic circumstance.
Context
The Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Act 2006 heralded a change from school boards to new Parent Councils. This raises a question as to how best these new bodies can be supported.
Support and advice for parents and Parent Councils is available from a number of organisations including the Scottish Parent Teacher Council ( SPTC), the Scottish Parent Council Association ( SPCA) and local authority Parental Involvement Officers. The wide range can however mean that it is difficult for parents to identify the best source for a particular problem.
Opinion varies on the urgency to develop any national body. Some see this as pressing whilst others think it can be allowed to develop over time. Whilst networking is starting to be established, there is a need to facilitate communications between Parent Councils.
Current Parent Council Activity and Support Received
Fundraising was the most commonly mentioned activity by far. Representing the parent view and communicating primarily with parents were also key.
Parent Councils currently get support across a range of issues but primarily in relation to encouraging parental involvement (71%); keeping up to date with educational policy (69%); insurance issues (58%), networking; (55%) and running meetings (51%). Less help is provided in relation to accessing grants (25%), sharing best practice (24%), identifying other groups to work with (15%) and setting up and managing a blog (8%).
Parent Councils receive support from a wide range of sources. The most significant by far is the LA, the single biggest source of support in 15 of the 24 activities researched. The school community collectively (senior management team, staff and school) are the second biggest source followed by the SPTC.
The local authority is particularly active in providing support in relation to representing parents but the school, SPTC, LTS/Parentzone and (to a lesser extent) SPCA are also active here. SPTC plays a prominent role in representing parents' views to Scottish Government. The local authority also helps significantly with administration and networking, whilst the SPTC are recognised as helping to share best practice and assisting with insurance and Disclosure Scotland issues. Help with activities comes from a very wide range of sources but most notably the local authority and the school with the SPTC being especially active in supporting fundraising. Communication with parents remains by comparison a lightly supported area with help coming mostly from the school community but also from the local authority. Parent Councils rely heavily on the local authority for acquiring knowledge with lesser contributions from the school management team then SPTC, LTS/Parentzone and SPCA.
Future Parent Council Activity and Support
Unprompted, activities where Parent Councils would seek support in future -
- Fundraising
- Encouraging more Parental participation,
- Finding ways of examining ideas/proposals and
- Networking.
A relatively low response on this suggests some uncertainty about their forward programme.
When prompted, Encouraging Parental Involvement (62%) and How to Promote links with the wider community (61%) stood out. With a further 45% interested in accessing the views of the parent forum this suggests that Parent Councils are grappling with the problem of how best to engage with their parent forum. Half of Parent Councils also listed help with Accessing Local Facilities/Resources and Keeping Up to Date with Educational Policy.
Parent Councils generally feel that most of the areas for which they currently receive relatively high levels of support will still need to be supported in future.
Activities where their anticipated future needs exceed current provision are:
- Setting up and Managing/Maintaining a Website/Blog
- Promoting Links with the Community
- Sharing Best Practice
- Accessing Local facilities/Resources
- Accessing Grants
- Identifying other Groups to Work with.
- Representing Parents to Scottish Government
Need for a National Body
Of those who did express a view, 79% are in favour of a national body. This view was largely consistent across the sample. The key reason given was that this will provide a body that will represent Parent Councils and parents at national level and give them a voice.
Of the 88 parents who believe there is no need for a national body, 22% assert that SPTC/ SPCA already fill that role; that the existing support is sufficient (16%) or that the priority is the local agenda and not the national one (18%).
There is a concern that all Parent Councils should have access to the same levels of support.
Role of a National Body
Representing parents' views at a national level stands out as the clear priority.
Stakeholders stress that the national body must have as its focus the interests of all parents but there is considerable debate concerning how to achieve this.
Diversity of interest is one reason why some say that it is not possible to represent the views of all parents.
It is recognised that issues must necessarily be prioritised and dealt with over time and a national body should be proactive in setting the agenda. A bottom up approach was advocated to ensure that it is parents' issues that do get identified. Suggestions for accessing the views of all parents include:
- Having special interest groups represented
- Undertaking specific planned research
- Using intelligence gathered from advice lines etc.
Evidence was seen as important when speaking on behalf of parents especially when in debate with professional educationalists.
There is a desire to see some clarity on the issue of insurance provision. Discussion with stakeholders suggested that LA decisions to purchase bulk membership of SPTC have affected the current landscape of parent representation quite significantly. Should it prove necessary, the expectation of parents' discussion groups was that the insurance issue should be resolved and paid for nationally.
The national body would require to have a lobbying role and there is considerable interest in it being able to exert influence over the local authorities who are seen to be providing variable levels of support across the country.
Opinion differs as to whether the national body should provide help and advice solely through Parent Councils or be available to individual parents. Some feel that it should simply provide a signposting role identifying other expert sources of advice.
A significant role is anticipated in helping Parent Councils to network. In the first instance at least, parents in particular saw regional forums as the route to improved networking. Electronic media should be fully exploited to aid networking.
Key Principles
A national body should be a membership organisation but there is less agreement on how to achieve this. Many believe there should be an automatic right of access by Parent Councils.
Membership should be confined to Parent Councils. It was deemed important that parents retain control and some felt that other organisations or individual experts might be co-opted or have associate status but should not have voting rights. Similarly, advisers should be co-opted but restricted to a separate advisory group and not form part of the core national body.
The majority view of both parents and other key stakeholders is that funding should be provided from central government and that this should not compromise independence if sensible safeguards were in place and maintained. Independence was crucial.
Nearly half of parents felt the remit should be wide and relate to the overall well being of each child. Some stakeholders disagreed, preferring a broad definition covering all aspects of a child's learning but not overall well being because of concerns about diluting the effort.
Geographic representation from across Scotland was expected on the board or council of the national body but no firm agreement on numbers. This was seen as important with a desire to avoid central belt bias. There are different thoughts on whether it is necessary for each of 32 local authorities to be represented or whether representation from 8 regions would suffice.
The clusters of Parent Councils that are now emerging were seen as a foundation on which a national body might be built. Some advocate one or two layers between Parent Councils and a national body corresponding to local authority and/or regional levels which would interact with the local authorities and provide representation to a national level.
There was a concern to ensure that the body remains in touch with its grass roots and that there should be mechanisms to avoid hijacking by quasi-political activists who have a particularly strong voice.
All were in agreement that salaried staff would be required to support the volunteers on the board or committee of the national body. Stakeholders suggested a staffing level ranging from 3 to 20 dependent on remit and structure.
Engagement
Engagement was seen as difficult generally. However with over a third (36%) indicating willingness to be a delegate to a regional event and a quarter (25%) being prepared to be delegated to a national conference there appears to be a credible level of interest at this stage in engaging with development of a national body.
Lack of time is the main barrier to engagement, being mentioned by 66% of all responding. The distances involved in Scottish geography and travel/ transport arrangements were mentioned by 37% rising to over 60% from remote rural or remote small towns. 21% mentioned cost (35% in rural areas).
Proposals to mitigate barriers include:
- Meetings in different parts of the country
- Video conferencing / web casting (possibly using GLOW)
- Training to build confidence
- Giving responsibility and taking views seriously
- Good chairing of meetings
- Use of email
- Shared transport scheme to help get people to meetings
- Attention to hospitality when people have travelled distances
The majority would expect all expenses, including childcare, to be met but no honoraria.
Next Steps & Recommendations
There is a much repeated imperative that the national body must not be imposed from above. This gives support to an approach that in the first instance would emphasise fostering the development of Parent Council networks and indeed Parent Councils themselves. The resulting infrastructure should then allow structures to emerge which fully reflected parents' requirements.
There would be a need for a funded interim body to take this forward, providing the interim encouragement and refining proposals for the medium term which anticipate Parent Council requirements. This would alleviate the concerns of those who are reluctant to sign up without knowing the detail. The interim body would also resolve the insurance issue, input to developing use of electronic media and promote greater consistency across LA's. Ideally the existing experience of those within current support organisations would not be lost in this transition.
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