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 re-structuring 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.

But one opposition councillor has warned that the changes could lead to schools losing out on "dedicated" governors.

A report into vacancies within the school governor service will be given to the Council's children's services scrutiny committee on Tuesday. It also details work being done by schools to "re-constitute" their governing bodies.

As well as revealing the number of vacancies, the report says the number of ethnic minority governors has increased in the past year from 19 per cent to 23 per cent. The Council had pushed for more minorities in governor roles to reflect the diversity of many of the district's schools.

The Department for Education requires the governing bodies of all maintained schools to "reconstitute" by September, re-forming to make sure they contain the skills and experience needed to run the school. Governing bodies should now include parent governors, staff governors a council governor and the school head.

The report's author, Paul Makin, assistant director of education and school improvement, said: "In December 2013 Bradford vacancies were 13 per cent of the total number of governors in the district. Since then vacancies have risen as governing bodies re-constitute. "Where reconstitution is completed vacancies have fallen to ten per cent. In schools yet to re-constitute, vacancies are not filled pending an audit of governor skills."

Liberal Democrats group leader, Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, said she was opposed to the policy reducing the number of governors.

"The body of school governors should include ordinary people making an extraordinary commitment to the school. The community should be reflected in the governing body. I don't want to see the professionalisation of governing bodies."

Councillor Debbie Davies, the 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 governing 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. There is still a lot of work to be done."

The committee meets in City Hall on Tuesday from 4.30pm.