Commentary on Sections Section 11 – Duties of education authority and headteacher to a Parent Council etc.
45.This section is concerned largely with the education authority’s duties to a Parent Council. These are intended to support the operation of a Parent Council, and require the education authority to provide advice and information to councils in response to any reasonable request from the council.
46.Section 11(2) sets out the duty upon the education authority to take appropriate steps to ensure that the headteacher and staff at a school are available to give advice and information to the school’s Parent Council on what is being done to promote parental involvement at the school. Section 11(3) places an additional duty on the headteacher of a school to give advice to the Parent Council on any matter falling within his or her area of responsibility, if requested to do so.
47.In addition, section 11(4) provides that the education authority are to allocate funding each year so that a Parent Council can meet its administrative expenses (including the payment of a clerk, if appointed), expenses of training provided or arranged by the council for its members, and other outgoings in carrying out its functions. The funding provided for Parent Councils is to be allocated from the authority’s budget, at a level which the education authority considers is reasonably required by the individual Parent Council.
48.Section 11(6) requires the education authority to inform the Parent Council about the arrangements at its school for consultation between parents and teachers, and allows the council to make representations on those arrangements to the education authority or the headteacher.
49.In support of the functions of a Parent Council to make representation about matters of concern or interest to the Parent Forum or the council itself, where the authority (or headteacher) has received representations from a Parent Council, subsection (7)(a) and (b) provides that they must have regard to such representations (as far as is reasonable and practicable) and must reply to them.