Governors and trustees – Diversity Data

The latest ‘What maintained schools should publish online’ guidance has included a section for boards on collecting and publishing governing board diversity data, see also what academies should publish online.

The Department for Education (DfE) say diversity is important and they want governing boards to be increasingly reflective of the communities they serve. They are encouraging schools to collect and publish governing board members’ diversity data. Information must be widely accessible to members of the school community and the public.

Board members can opt out of sharing their information, including protected characteristics, at any given time including after publication. Schools must ensure that individuals cannot be identified through the publication of data, particularly when board member levels are low. Read more about this in the data protection toolkit for schools and Equality Act 2010: advice for schools.

There is no prescriptive way to collect diversity data from volunteers; this needs to be done on a voluntary basis. Schools may prefer to adopt a similar approach to how they collate the diversity data of pupils.