School governors in England are being urged to keep a close eye on individual teachers' performance records.

School governors are being urged to scrutinise individual teachers’performance records. This comes as a response to a report by MPs which raisedthe concern of governors being denied access to performance data on grounds ofconfidentiality.

School governing bodies are entitled to information about the outcome ofappraisals so that they can scrutinise the performance of the school and itsstaff - but the amount of detail given to governors varies between schools.

In a report published in May the Commons Education Committee said schoolgovernors should be encouraged to be rigorous in their scrutiny of performancemanagement in schools.

The report, 'Great Teachers: Attracting, Training and Retaining the Best',recommended that the Department for Education "provide additionalinformation to governing bodies following inspections, aiding them better tohold head teachers to account for performance management arrangements."


In its response the government said: "We understand that under thecurrent performance management arrangements, governors have often been deniedaccess to information about the performance of individual teachers, on groundsof confidentiality."

Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers said: "Whilstacknowledging the oversight role which falls to governors, it would however beinappropriate for governors to receive the full details of every teacher'sappraisal."

Gillian Allcroft of the National Governors' Association said governingbodies needed an overview of how staff were performing rather than details onindividuals - but she told BBC News that in some schools appraisal reports togovernors had lacked detail.

"There are cases where governors do not have all the informationthat they need. It's really important that governors have rigorous performancescrutiny."