Governing bodies must be beefed up to crack down on school mismanagement that is failing children, it was claimed today.

Councillor David Ward (Lib Dem), executive member for education, said a spate of Ofsted failures has highlighted weak management in some schools.

In some cases, the scale of the problems in schools only came to light when inspection teams wrote up their damning reports.

And governors had later declared themselves unaware of what had been going on - although they are supposed to act as a 'critical friend' to the school and ensure it is providing a good standard of education and value for money.

Coun Ward is demanding that fresh attention is given to the training which new governors receive.

"We can't have governing bodies turning round and saying 'we didn't know' - which we have had now at a number of schools," he said.

"We have got some serious management weaknesses," said Coun Ward, himself a governor at Iqra Primary School in Manningham.

"We have had a number of schools where governing bodies have clearly not been fully aware of the seriousness of the situation. I am concerned and have asked Education Bradford to look at the issue of training and development of governors as well as at issues of leadership and management.

"It's a training issue. Governors need to have the self-confidence to challenge the headteacher and ask the right questions."

At St Augustine's CE Primary in Undercliffe, the latest one to be placed in Special Measures, leadership by both the headteacher and governing body was slated, after the school's overdraft spiralled out of control to £250,000.

At Swain House Primary, the Ofsted report exposed a failure to implement basic policies common to all schools such as strategies for literacy and numeracy and a school development plan.

John Hesketh, of the Bradford school governor service, said: "I will be discussing this with David Ward and Phil Green, the director of education, about how we can continue to support governors. We continue to provide training, particularly to help governing bodies to work as a team."

The School Governor Service, part of Education Bradford, runs a host of training courses aimed at governors and offers advice.

It also maintains a website - educationbradford.com.