How do you run a skills audit for a governing body?
Methods and templates for assessing governor skills, identifying gaps and planning recruitment.
Quick Answer
A skills audit involves surveying all governors about their skills, knowledge and experience across key governance areas, then aggregating results to identify collective strengths and gaps. The audit should cover strategic leadership, accountability, financial management, HR, education, safeguarding, and other relevant areas. Results inform governor recruitment and training priorities.
Quick Reference
| Recommended frequency | Annually or when composition changes |
|---|---|
| Who completes it | All governors individually |
| Key skill areas | Finance, HR, education, safeguarding, legal |
| NGA competency framework | 16 core competencies |
| Use of results | Recruitment and training planning |
Why conduct a skills audit
Effective governance requires a board with the right mix of skills, knowledge and experience to fulfil its three core functions: setting strategic direction, holding leaders to account, and ensuring financial sustainability.
A skills audit helps the governing body:
- Understand its collective strengths and weaknesses
- Target recruitment to fill specific skills gaps
- Plan training and development for existing governors
- Allocate governors to committees based on their expertise
- Demonstrate to Ofsted that governance is effective
DfE expectation
Key skill areas to assess
The NGA competency framework suggests assessing governors across these areas:
- Strategic leadership and vision
- Accountability and challenge
- Financial management and budgeting
- Human resources and staffing
- Education, curriculum and assessment
- Safeguarding and child protection
- Health and safety
- Buildings and estates
- Legal and regulatory compliance
- Marketing and communications
- Data analysis and interpretation
- Risk management
Running the audit
To run an effective skills audit:
- Choose or create an audit questionnaire covering key skill areas
- Ask each governor to rate their own skills honestly
- Use a consistent scale, such as 1-4 or "None / Some / Good / Expert"
- Collect responses confidentially to encourage honesty
- Aggregate results to show board-level strengths and gaps
- Present findings to the full governing body
- Develop an action plan to address gaps
Include experience context
Using the results
Once you have audit results, use them to:
- Write targeted recruitment specifications for new governors
- Match governors to committees based on their expertise
- Identify training needs for individual governors
- Plan whole-board development sessions on weak areas
- Brief candidates in governor elections about needed skills
- Report to Ofsted on how governance is maintained effectively
How Choice Voting helps with this
Choice Voting offers digital skills audit tools that make it easy to collect, analyse and track governor competencies over time.
- Digital skills audit with automatic analysis
- Gap identification and development planning
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Frequently Asked Questions
About the author
Choice Voting Governance Team
Governance Lead
Part of the Choice Voting governance team, helping UK schools run compliant, well-attended elections and consultations.