FOI Request - Parental Involvement and Engagement Parent Councils

Request 101003537205

Parental Involvement and Engagement and Supporting Parent Councils

Parent Councils
1. How does your local authority support its parent councils? For example, do you provide support by providing any of the following:
• a direct grant or allocated budget
• a grant via the school
• training
• insurance
• access to advice and support
• employing and/or paying for a clerk .
2. Is there a local authority Area Forum (or similar) for Parent Council Chairs (or Parent Council members) where they can discuss issues of common interest? If yes:
• What is it called?
• Who sets the agenda for the Area Forum?
• Who runs and chairs the meeting of the Area Forum?
• Does the Area Forum have legal status ie as a local authority sub-committee? If yes, please explain
• What other ways does your local authority have for gathering the views of Parent Councils?
Parental Engagement and Representation

3. Does your local authority have a parental involvement officer? If yes, what percentage of their role is dedicated to parental involvement in their job specification?

4. Does your local authority have a parent/carer representative (or more than one) on the Education/Children and Families (or equivalent) Committee? If yes:
• how is the parent representative chosen? For example, are they elected?
• does the parent representative have voting rights?
• is the parent representative able to gather parent/carer views and if so how do they do this?
• how is the parent representative supported in their role by your local authority?
5. Is there a pupil representative on the Education or Children and Families Committee?

6. Is there a parent representative on the education appeals committee? (for school placing requests etc)

7. As a local authority, how else do you support parental engagement? Eg up-to-date website content; dedicated parental engagement email address; using social media; staff training etc.

Response 19-04-2024

1. How does your local authority support its parent councils? For example, do you provide support by providing any of the following:
•             training – Yes, through Connect which the council pays for as well as from council officers on topics at the request of Parent Forum.
•             insurance – Yes as above
•             access to advice and support – Yes via Moray Council and Connect.
•             employing and/or paying for a clerk - Yes

2. Is there a local authority Area Forum (or similar) for Parent Council Chairs (or Parent Council members) where they can discuss issues of common interest? If yes: Yes
•             What is it called? Moray Parent Forum
•             Who sets the agenda for the Area Forum? Moray Parent Forum are asked for agenda items and Moray Council shares items of interest.
•             Who runs and chairs the meeting of the Area Forum? – A Quality Improvement Officer or the Head of Service
•             Does the Area Forum have legal status ie as a local authority sub-committee? No   If yes, please explain.
•             What other ways does your local authority have for gathering the views of Parent Councils? Moray Parent Forum and through an annual survey

3. Yes, approximately 5% of their role is dedicated.

4. No

5. Yes

6. No

7. We have a Parental Involvement and Engagement Strategy and support schools to develop involvement and engagement in line with the national learning plan. There is a dedicated Moray Parent Forum email address and information is cascaded to this address and to schools for onward sharing where relevant.