That emerging situation was made worse by the new Charities Act. Now schools were no longer "exempt" charities — that is to say, deemed to be charitable, and thus qualifying for the financial benefits which being a charity brings with it, simply in virtue of the fact that they served the undoubtedly charitable object of education. Now they had to demonstrate "public benefit". For a long time, it wasn't clear quite what this meant. Nevertheless, you would have had to be incurably optimistic to think that letting local residents use some of the school's facilities occasionally during the vacations would be sufficient. Bursaries — that is to say, free or nearly free places for children from families unable to afford the fees — were plainly, if for a long time inexplicitly, what was needed. How were these bursaries to be paid for? A few — a very few — schools had substantial endowments which could be applied to this purpose. Others had either to raise the funds from benefactors, or — easier and therefore more likely — to shoulder the cost out of income. This immediately shrank the bottom line in the accounts. Many bursars must have looked up from remodelling their financial projections, glanced out of the window with regretful eyes at, say, their new performing arts centre, and nursed bitter thoughts about how many bursaries the funds it consumed might have paid for.

The third event was the general financial crisis of the past two years. The wholesale withdrawal of pupils feared by governing bodies and staff rooms did not occur. A number of parents on the edge of the bottomless pit of private education drew back, forfeited their deposits and sent their children instead to the local state school. Those already embarked kept going, more or less — parents will make extraordinary sacrifices to keep their child at a school where they are happy and thriving. But it was clear, without it needing to be said, that fee increases for the foreseeable future would have to be conspicuously moderate. And this too depressed, and will continue to depress, the level of surpluses.

So the current environment for school governing bodies is a complicated one. The financial weather is still cloudy, the legislative setting remains non-specifically menacing, and the traditional relationship between school governors and the headmaster has in recent years begun to shift in ways that cause concern. For as a result of the Charities Act in particular, governors have had to take a much closer interest than they did before in the day-to-day activities of the school. The line between setting ends (the province of the governors) and pursuing means (the province of the staff) has become increasingly muddied. The Guide for Governors published by the Independent Schools Council acknowledges that this is an area where theory and practice may be hard to reconcile. It is easy to state the respective jurisdictions of the governors and the head:

The Governing Body is concerned with aims, policies and plans. It looks to the Head to help formulate and then to implement them. Acting within that framework, the Head and his team manage and administer the school with the support of the governors.

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