Our thanks to education experts, Keith Clover, Brendan Hollyer, Vicky Redding and Fiona Stagg for their help with this article.
Co-chairing is allowed
As long as you keep your board’s leadership clear to everyone, you can appoint more than 1 person to the role of chair.
This is explained on page 45 of the Governance Handbook.
If you’re on a local governing body (LGB), check with your trust first to make sure it will let you do this. Even if your LGB is responsible for electing its own chair, err on the side of caution and make sure your trust permits co-chairing.
Decide if it’ll work for you: pros and cons
Before diving into how to make co-chairing work, be clear on whether it's the right choice for you.
Pros
You’re doing it for a positive reason (e.g. succession planning), not just because you don’t have time It’ll