Register of Business and Personal Interests
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In May 1996 the Nolan Committee published a report on standards in local public spending bodies. This report identified seven principles that should be applied to public life. These are: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. One of the ways that a school can demonstrate that it is applying these principles is by maintaining a register of business interests.
Indeed OFSTED state, “ The governing body should establish a register of business interests of governors, the headteacher and any other staff who influence financial decisions. This should be open to examination by governors, staff, parents and the Local Authority”
All people involved in spending public money must be able to demonstrate that they do not benefit personally from any decisions that they make.
By keeping a register of staff who may have a conflict of interests the school can ensure that they are not involved in any part of the decision making process when awarding large contracts or making high cost purchases.
The register must be freely available for inspection by governors, staff and parents.
As a minimum governors and all school staff should register any trade or profession along with any direct interest in any company providing goods or services that they or a member of their family may have an involvement in. They should also register any personal interest where they feel that a member of the public might reasonably think that they could influence the actions of that individual, the governing body or the decision making process.
Examples of this could be:
- Governors and school staff declaring any links they or members of their family have with local companies from which the school may wish to purchase goods and services.
- The husband of a member of staff manages / owns a company trading in ICT equipment and software therefore that member of staff should declare that interest and have no influence or involvement in any decision to purchase goods or services from that company.
- A member of staff is involved with a local football team. This should be declared as a personal interest as a member of the public might reasonably think that the member of staff may use their influence or position within the school to gain use of training facilities at a favourable rate.
Family members could include:
- Husband
- Wife
- Partner
- Son
- Daughter
- Mother
- Father
- Sister
- Brother
- In - laws
Within a month of a new employee starting they must complete and sign both Part A and Part B of the Register of Business and Personal Interests form. (If you already have your own form in place you must ensure that all the information in Part A and Part B of the forms is incorporated.) Ideally this information should then be transferred to either a computerised or handwritten spreadsheet summarising all business and personal interests of all staff and governors at the school.
Part A and Part B of the Register of Business Interests form and a summary spreadsheet are available as downloadable documents at the bottom of this page.
For existing staff, if they haven’t already completed a form then they must do so immediately, otherwise a new form must be completed, by all staff and governors, at the beginning of each academic year and the summary sheet updated accordingly. The register should then be presented to the full governing body in the autumn term.
If a member of staff doesn’t have any business or personal interests to declare then they must still complete, sign and date a form each year.
The school must also have in place a process for staff to declare interests that arise during the year as they become aware of them.
Downloads
Part A of the Register of Business and Personal Interests form for governors and school staff to complete (26.5 KB)
Part B of the Register of Business and Personal Interests for governors and school staff to complete (20.5 KB)
Summary of Register of Business and Personal Interests for the school to complete (14 KB)