COUNCILLORS from all the major political parties have called for more power to intervene at troubled schools after it was revealed yet another Bradford school will have its governors replaced.

The governing body at St Luke's Church of England school in Eccleshill will stand down after internal "disagreements" over how to run it meant they undermined the school's focus on improving.

Bradford Council has now applied to the Department for Education to install an Interim Executive Board to run the school until a new governing body is found.

In April the governors at Laisterdyke Business and Enterprise College were sacked after a report criticising governance and the Council has also been urged to act at Carlton Bolling College, a report on which is due to be released tomorrow.

Councillor Ralph Berry, executive member for education, said the council had its hands tied when it came to dealing with school governors - they can only fire the entire governing body and only when there is evidence of a problem - such as an Ofsted inspection.

The drastic move at St Luke's follows a report published by Ofsted yesterday that criticised divisions within the governing body, and claimed they meant they were unable to agree on a much needed action plan to improve the school.

In April the school was inspected and found to "require improvement" with many pupils progressing to slow. This led to a follow up inspection last month.

That report says: "Although governors are committed to the school, disagreements within the governing body mean that it has not focused enough on the job at hand.

"It has failed to produce an appropriate action plan and is clearly not in the position to do so."

But the school is praised for its efforts to improve, with the report saying: "There is already some very clear evidence your actions are bearing fruit."

The school is run by the Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales, and the Venerable Dr David Lee, Archdeacon of Bradford, said: "The diocese recognises the governing body has divided into two groups, both of which are passionate about serving the school but hold different views.

"We will fully co-operate with the local authority and look forward to the creation of a new board of governors for St Luke's."

He said the chairman of governors Marie Small was very upset that the situation had got to this stage.

Cllr Berry, said: "It is similar in many ways to what happened at Laisterdyke - it is about getting the right governance in place to improve the schools.

"It shows that we are not just intervening when it comes to Muslim governors. There is a very different social context here, but this is crucial to make sure things move forward."

At a full council meeting on Tuesday, the Council put forward a motion calling for its powers "to support local schools and hold them accountable to local people should be strengthened".

Council leader David Green, said the authority only had one course of action open to it if it had concerns about a governing body.

He said that was to “go in with a sledgehammer, take out the governing body, put in an interim executive board, and that usually does lead to academisation”.

Cllr Green wants a more flexible approach which would allow it to remove problem governors while leaving the rest in place.