ALMOST three in every ten school governor roles in the district are vacant, newly released figures have revealed.

Out of the 2,139 governor positions in Bradford Council-run schools a total of 622, or 29 per cent, are unfilled.

Of these, 166 vacancies are for parent governors, 122 for local authority governors, which include councillors, and 79 for staff governors.

Bradford Council says the high number of unfilled roles is due to a restructuring programme being carried out by every school in the district, and predicts that the proportion of vacancies will drop to about ten per cent when that process is finished.

The size of governing bodies is also likely to shrink at many schools.

Councillor Debbie Davies, the council's Conservative spokesman for education, said: "I'm most concerned about the number of parent governor vacancies there are.

"You would think parents would be more interested in their children's school. We need to find out why parents don't want to do fill these roles. Maybe people feel like they can't relate or don't know what governors do."

But Councillor Ralph Berry, executive member for children's services, said some bodies were too large.

"We have looked at school governance as a priority for some time and we're taking advantage of the new DofE regulations to reduce the size of governing bodies," he said.

"There is still a lot of work to be done."