Letter: Self-perpetuating school governors

Sir: Amid the varying opinion about schools' decisions on grant- maintained status (reports, 31 March and 1 April), one fact warrants regular reiteration.

By law, the majority of governors of a grant-maintained school must be 'first governors' who are unelected by parents and who, once in place, can perpetuate their own appointments and select their replacements.

Parents opting for grant-maintained status must accept that they give to these unaccountable governors the 'awesome power and responsibility' of which Colin Hughes writes, and that in doing so they give up, irrevocably, their own and their successors' rights to decide the course their school might take in the future.

Yours faithfully,

CLIVE UPTON

Ilkley,

West Yorkshire

2 April