Governing body and laptop

[localzuk]

Clerk does make a difference. Clerk is an employee and definitely gets a laptop. It's essential. Still no admin rights though!

 

Indeed. Our clerk is also our bursar, so they overlap but we'd be using a device to the clerk if they didn't already have a role in the school.

[plexer]

Providing a laptop to the clerk if that is their only role as an employee would be disproportionate to it's use so I wouldn't automatically just say oh yes they're the clerk they get a laptop.

 

Many clerks clerk to multiple governing bodies so should they get a laptop from each school?

 

Ben

[elsiegee40]

Some clerks do multiple GBs. I would not say most. The clerk is a key employee of the GB and their legal advisor. Clerks cannot do their job without a computer and many take minutes straight on to a laptop rather than using a notepad and short-hand these days.

 

The clerk should not be an employee of the school, especially not in a senior role. How can the GB be correctly advised when challenging the spending of public money if the clerk is the Bursar?!

[localzuk]

A cursory search had turned up a large number of schools that have their bursar as their clerk, so it doesn't appear to be all that uncommon...

[elsiegee40]

A cursory search had turned up a large number of schools that have their bursar as their clerk, so it doesn't appear to be all that uncommon...

 

It's not that uncommon, especially in the independent schools.You don't have to be a governor for very long to realise why it is all wrong for the Bursar to be Clerk though! The official recommendation is that the Clerk is an appointee of the Governing Body and not of the school at all. In practice, that is often difficult to afford and/or achieve.

 

Having a clerk who has a junior role such as school secretary can mean that the clerk starts doing what the Head says rather than what the GB needs... divided loyalties... a battle I have had to fight as chair. The Governing Body should be challenging the Bursar, so having the Bursar as Clerk makes that very difficult and gives a dodgy Bursar more opportunity to avoid detection. Personally, I would much rather an independent clerk, but a junior employee is better than the Bursar!

[witch]

In my governor school the clerk works in the admin office

In one of the schools I work in the clerk is the Office Manager/PA to the head (she was clerk first)

In the other school I work in the clerk is a TA. She is the only one of the three to get a school laptop and there are special circumstances in that she works with the dyslexic children and needs it to do the testing in private with them - but if she wasnt clerk as well it is doubtful that she would have got such a nice one. It is a standard school laptop though - locked down etc.

[truebluesteve]

In my governor school the clerk works in the admin office

In one of the schools I work in the clerk is the Office Manager/PA to the head (she was clerk first)

 

Same at my school - she has her own desktop PC obviously and has never asked for a laptop other than to borrow one for Governors meetings so she could take notes. She doesn't even bother with that now so it can't be a major problem for her.