Sustainability & Climate Action Hub Governance

AoC Code of Good Governance 2024

Governors’ Council and the National Governance Professionals work with AoC to review and update the AoC Code of Good Governance for English colleges.

With an increasing focus on college boards, it is essential to ensure the Code is providing the appropriate standards and expectations for college corporations and other relevant entities in the sector.

This work has focused on three main areas:

• To incorporate a stronger focus on equality, diversity and inclusion (with the help of AoC EDI Steering Group) and environmental sustainability (with the help of the FE Climate Commission) within the code
• To streamline the code reducing repetition, ensuring that more guidance is moved to appendixes or referenced to external sites
• To update links to key policy document and information to ensure that these are as current as possible

The AoC Code of Good Governance has been revised to align with the unique challenges and opportunities faced by Further Education institutions.

The code, originally issued in 2015, has undergone a thorough review and is now centred around six fundamental principles: determination of organisational aims and strategic oversight, responsibility and accountability, leadership and integrity, collaboration and stakeholder engagement, regulatory compliance, and board and organisational effectiveness.

The new code has been in the sector for a year and has been agreed by the DfE. We are happy to announce that the "new" code is now live (following a conversation with the Catholic Education Service, one additional footnote and two further bullet points have been added).

The "old" code was retired on 31 July 2024 and fully withdrawn on 31 December 2024.

For more information on our work please visit the Governance webpage.