You can now add personal information to your profile page on GovernorHub to contribute to a board diversity report.
Reports will only contain data from board members who are allocated to the board's constitution.
The Department for Education (DfE) encourages maintained schools and academy trusts to collect and publish diversity data about the board and any local committees.
Do I have to answer these questions?
No, it's voluntary. You can also opt-out of sharing this information at any time (just click on the red 'Remove' button when you are in the 'Edit personal information' window - see image below) and we will no longer process it.
If your board level data has already been published, you may wish to let your clerk or admin know to update this information.
Will I be identifiable when answering these questions?
A board report will only generate if a minimum number of members have filled in their personal information for a given characteristic to ensure anonymity is preserved.
It's unlikely that you could ever be directly identifiable based on your anonymised data, even if a board chooses to publish its data for example - on a school website.
Read more about how we’ll anonymise your data in this article and, information about how we’ll store it, in our privacy policy.
Who will be able to see my responses?
Only you will be able to view and edit the responses you give us in the 'personal information' area. Your clerk, other admins or any support services and local authorities will not be able to view or edit your individual responses.
Can I provide my information and request for it to not be published?
If you'd prefer your information is not published, we'd recommend not completing the personal information section on your GovernorHub profile page.
What type of information are you collecting?
We are collecting data on the demographic make-up of governing boards, including information on: age, disability, ethnicity, religion, sex and gender identity, sexual orientation, and education level.
Most of our questions are identical to the question and answer options used in the 2021 census (those around disability, ethnicity, sex and gender identity, religion and sexual orientation). This will allow for comparisons with this existing data. Read more about the personal information questions on your GovernorHub profile page.
How frequently will you ask for this information?
We will periodically ask you to review your data to make sure it’s kept up-to-date.
Can I update my information if something changes?
Yes. You can update it at any time, in the same way that you can update your name or email address on GovernorHub whenever you need to.
On what lawful basis are you collecting this information?
We are collecting this information on the basis of the consent of the individual user when they submit their response.
You can update or withdraw it, at any time.
How will you use this information?
Boards can download an anonymised diversity report to share on their school or trust website, so they can meet new DfE guidance.
Trust and LA level reports are also available to download by admins who manage governance. Note: these reports count responses per individual post in the constitution, so may include duplicate responses if someone volunteers across multiple boards. We will also provide a report without duplicates.
At GovernorHub we will report on this at a national level with anonymised, aggregated data, published at regular intervals and in comparison with census data.