Who Holds the Pen? Delegated Authority When the Head Is Absent

A plan for departure is not a plan for absence

Ask a governing body to produce its headship succession arrangements and most will reach, without hesitation, for a paper that sets out notice periods, the recruitment calendar and two or three plausible internal candidates. It is often a good document. It also assumes something the governing body cannot guarantee: that the board will know, in advance, roughly when the vacancy will begin.

Illness rarely obliges. Nor does an abrupt resignation, a settlement agreement, or a decision to place the head on garden leave while a matter is examined. In each case the board is left holding an unplanned vacancy, a school expecting continuity, and a set of decisions that must be taken before the next scheduled meeting.

The purpose of an interim leadership protocol is not to anticipate every circumstance. It is to ensure that the board has already decided who may act, on what authority, and at what point it must stop improvising and begin a permanent appointment.

Settle the decision rights before they are needed

An absence protocol stands or falls on two documents the board should already hold: a schedule of matters reserved to the board and a scheme of delegation that assigns authority to roles rather than to named individuals. Where either is vague, the vacancy will expose it within days.

In practice, boards should be able to answer the following without adjourning:

• Who may sign contracts above the agreed threshold, and is the bank mandate operable if the head is one of two signatories?
• Who authorises unbudgeted expenditure, staff appointments, settlement payments and ex-gratia awards?
• Who speaks to parents, to the press and to the wider community, and who is expressly not to?
• Where the head also serves as a director, trustee or accounting officer, which of those functions fall away and who assumes them?
• Which deputies — bursar, designated safeguarding lead, head of estates — are named in writing, and are their own deputies named?

A standing resolution appointing a named deputy as acting head, with defined authority for a fixed period, is a modest instrument and worth more than a lengthy policy. Keep it short, keep it signed, and review it annually so that the names remain current. Record the resolution in the minutes; if the arrangement later endures beyond its stated period, the board will want to show that it was renewed deliberately rather than allowed to drift.

The first seventy-two hours

Sequence matters as much as content. Staff should hear from the chair or an identified senior leader before parents do, and parents before speculation does. A short, factual communication confirming that leadership arrangements are in place, naming the person now in charge and giving a contact for queries will do more for confidence than any amount of detail about the circumstances, which should not be shared.

Pupils should be told in an age-appropriate way, by someone they know. Where the departure relates to a safeguarding matter, the designated safeguarding lead and any deputy should be briefed first, and the board should be able to confirm that safeguarding arrangements are unaffected.

Media handling is best settled in advance: one voice, no speculation on health or personal circumstances, no comment on individual employment matters, and a clear route by which enquiries reach the chair. Employment confidentiality is not an obstruction to communication; it simply requires that the school says less about the person and more about continuity.

Regulatory and statutory notifications

The area in which boards most often slip is notification. Obligations depend on the school's constitution and status, and should be confirmed with your own advisers, but the list commonly includes the Department for Education in respect of material changes for registered schools, the relevant inspectorate, the Charity Commission where a serious incident has occurred, Companies House where directorships change, the school's insurers, and Teachers' Pensions where payroll arrangements are affected. Safeguarding referrals, health and safety reporting and data protection duties may also be engaged, depending on the facts.

Keep a notification log: date, body, individual contacted, reference number and the decision taken. Where the board decides not to notify, record why. A contemporaneous note is the difference between a considered judgement and an apparent oversight.

Acting head or interim head: name the arrangement precisely

The two are not interchangeable, and the distinction should be set out in writing before anyone starts.

An acting head is typically an internal appointment, caretaker in character, limited in scope and carrying no expectation of permanence. An interim head is usually external, engaged against a defined brief, and may be expected to lead change; the cost is higher and the contract should carry a clear end date and deliverables.

Whichever route is chosen, the arrangements should specify the duration, the reporting line to the chair, the authority limits, the remuneration basis — acting-up allowance, day rate, or a mixture — and whether the post-holder may apply for the permanent role. On that last point the board should be explicit; ambiguity here unsettles both the interim and the senior team.

The risk to watch is the accidental permanent appointment: an interim arrangement that quietly extends across several terms while recruitment is deferred, strategy stalls and deputies begin to look elsewhere. Good intentions do not prevent this. A dated decision gate does.

The decision gate: when does the permanent process begin?

Boards should fix review points at the outset — the end of the first month, the end of the first term, and any point at which the picture changes materially. At each, the following questions should be put and minuted:

• What is the expected duration of the absence, expressed as fitness for the role rather than as a diagnosis?
• Does the arrangement create exposure with an inspectorate, a regulator or a funder?
• Where does the appointment sit against the recruitment market and the school's own admissions cycle?
• What is the effect on staff morale, on the retention of senior colleagues and on parental confidence?
• What is the cumulative cost of cover, and is it sustainable across a full academic year?

If the answer to the first question is uncertain, the board need not act immediately — but it should say, in the minutes, when it will next ask. If the absence becomes permanent, the interim should not chair the appointment panel, and the panel's composition should be revisited.

Assurance while the seat is warm

A one-page report to the chair and, fortnightly, to the board is sufficient: cover arrangements in place, decisions taken under delegated authority, exceptions, complaints, safeguarding matters, staffing, finances and regulatory correspondence. The board should ratify delegated decisions at its next meeting and note them in the minutes. The aim is not scrutiny for its own sake but a record that authority was exercised within its limits.

When the head returns, or a permanent appointment is made, the board should debrief. Which delegation was missing? Which contact was out of date? Which notification was nearly missed? The answers belong in the protocol, not in the memory of the person who happened to be in the room.