What is likely to happen and when

In practice, the commitment to ‘remove the requirement to have governors’ means that the statutory powers of governors will be removed, and all references to governors will be deleted from statute. The powers and functions of councils of governors will either be transferred elsewhere or deleted entirely (see section 4). Once the law changes, there is no option for an FT to continue to have a ‘council of governors’ with the powers and functions that it currently has.

One of the key challenges for FTs in reacting to the proposal is that the change cannot happen until new legislation is passed and enacted by Parliament.

The passage of a Bill through Parliament and the House of Lords is not always straightforward, and government timetables can slip. This can create uncertainty about whether the legislation will eventually pass and, if it does, when it will come into force. Some of the board members and governors we spoke to expressed some scepticism about whether the legislation would pass at all.

All we can say for certain is that, at the time of writing, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) continues to draft legislation to remove the statutory powers of governors. It is likely, but not certain, that this will happen and likely but not certain that the law will change on 1 April 2027.

In managing the uncertainty and preparing for the likelihood that the legislation passes, it is important to recognise the possibility that the timescales may be extended (possibly considerably) or that the legislation fails to pass at all.