Further Education Governor Recruitment Service 2025

The FE Colleges Governor Recruitment Service ("the Service") will be an integral part of the Department for Education (DfE) help and active support offer for colleges. The Service is designed to strengthen governance in colleges by supporting the recruitment of a diverse range of appropriately skilled and knowledgeable governors to key roles on governing boards.

The Service will be free at the point of use. To ensure that the Service is targeted to those college boards which have the greatest need of help, access will be via a referral from the department, which will have the discretion to define "key" roles and will prioritise or limit referrals to ensure alignment with the terms of the contract with the Supplier.

The outputs will be:

A successful service model whereby the Supplier will need to: understand and communicate the benefits and responsibilities of being an FE governor to potential volunteers; work with college governing board chairs and governance professionals (clerks) to better understand the candidate requirements for the roles that are to be filled; and to ensure a diverse selection of appropriately qualified and well-briefed candidates for interview by the board.

A minimum of 140 appropriately skilled and diverse governors to be appointed to key governor roles over the Contract Period (210 should the optional extension period be utilised), with a minimum of 60 within in the first year. Support and advice for boards to put in place effective induction, support and development to help new governors understand their new responsibilities, and to continue in their roles for the longer term.