Working parties: terms of reference

Working parties or groups can be a great way to tackle time-consuming problems, especially if your board operates without committees. Download and adapt our terms of reference to get started.

New
on 27 January 2025
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 45082
Contents
  1. Work out when a working party is the best solution
  2. Use our template terms of reference
  3. Take the terms of reference to the full board for approval

Work out when a working party is the best solution

Some problems or tasks that governors/trustees need to work on can be impractical for the full board to tackle together. Also, if your board uses the circle model of governance, you may not have committees set up to think about certain areas more deeply. This is where a working party can help.

Working parties:

  • Are usually formed with 3 or 4 governors
  • Have very narrow responsibilities
  • Meet to discuss a specific topic, and report its findings to the board
  • Don't have any decision-making responsibilities themselves

You might use a working party to, for example:

Once you've decided a working party is the best solution, you'll need to put together your terms of reference to