Emma Knights from the National Governors’ Association (NGA) explains the role of the scheme of delegation that every multi-academy trust must draw up to ensure its governance is on the right footing.

Seats of power

Governance determines who has power, who makes decisions, how other players make their voice heard and how account is rendered.” This definition, adopted from the Institute on Governance in Canada, captures the essence of governance and why it is so important to get governance right. In a multi-academy trust (MAT) the power and decisionmaking lies, for the most part, with the board of trustees, who are also the board of company directors and responsible for a number of schools.

Governance is required, in part, to prevent lead executives going off on frolics of their own. Instead, it draws on the collective wisdom and experience of a team. That team must be skilled and include a range of relevant backgrounds, knowledge and perspectives.

Trustees are themselves held to account by the members of the trust, its top governance tier. Members are the custodians of the governance of the trust but they meet rarely in normal circumstances, only springing into action if there are concerns with the trustees and the way they are overseeing the trust’s performance.

As they will only really be needed in times of trouble, the members’ role is often overlooked, but serious consideration should be given to how many and who the members are. Choose carefully, have five as a minimum and avoid both conflicts of interests and overlap with trustees or other roles within the trust.

The National Governors’ Association (NGA) and Academy Ambassadors, a non-profit body that brings business leaders to work with MATs, recently hosted a seminar for about 40 people involved as trustees or governance managers of MATs. We took this initiative because there has been little sharing of experiences among MATs, so they are having to “make it up as we go along”. The most repeated message from the MATs was the need for clarity and how critical it was that all players at every level understand their role and how it fits with the whole organisation.

Lack of capacity

There are a number of examples where MATs have expanded without clear thought about how growth will change their workings and structure. This can lead to a lack of capacity and duplication of effort and build in additional risks, confusion and vulnerabilities.

In the last year, the NGA and ASCL have published two guidance papers: MATs and Federations: Leading and governing groups of schools and Forming or Joining a Group of Schools: Staying in control of your school’s destiny. But we needed to go further into the detail of the different roles in a MAT, both non-executive and executive.

A scheme of delegation (SoD) is the key document agreed by the MAT board to define the lines of responsibility and accountability. It establishes who makes which decisions and should ensure that the lines of responsibility are clear to those within the MAT – members, trustees, committees (including local governance committees), executive leadership and academy heads – as well as any governing bodies of schools considering joining the MAT.

Before you set about drafting a SoD, you need to ensure your governance structure is fit for purpose. There is no single way of establishing it; it will depend on the context, size, geography and age, as well as the ethos and values of the trust and the strength of its schools.

Terms of reference

Deciding what to retain at trustee board level and what to delegate can vary from trust to trust, for good reason. This detailed information will not be set out in the trust’s articles of association, the MAT’s governing document, but needs to be explicitly set out and agreed by the trustee board. This SoD is, in effect, a document that incorporates all the terms of reference of the board’s committees.

Since last September, MATs have been expected by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) to publish their SoD but many still haven’t. (This is in addition to the written scheme of delegation of financial powers also required by the Academies Financial Handbook.)

We have devised four model SoDs, which represent a range of approaches, being with:

• academy governing committees
• academy councils
• cluster governing committees (reporting on a number of academies)
• so-called ‘earned autonomy’ (variable levels of responsibility for academy committees, often depending on the school’s performance)

These four models are only the beginning; they will be improved and the set added to. Since their publication in April, we have been asked a number of times which model we would recommend. There is no one ‘best’ scheme: it truly needs to be a pick-and-mix approach.

If your schools are small, you can also learn from the tried-and tested structures that have worked in federations for some years, where decision-making is not delegated to school level.

On the other hand, a MAT containing even two large secondary schools may need to retain academy governing committees, but not necessarily. Instead, academy councils can be set up that perform ambassadorial and monitoring functions, acting as the eyes and ears of the trustees at the academy. They won’t have power as such but they will ensure other players – staff, pupils, parents, the community, local employers – can make their voice heard and that trustees render account to them.

Avoid misunderstandings

We are aware of a number of occasions where governing bodies of maintained schools have opted to join a MAT with the agreement that they will be retained as a so-called local governing body by the trust. But although the ‘body’ may be retained, its decision-making powers may be much reduced or, in some cases, non-existent. It is important that those governing at academy level understand that they are simply a committee of the trust board, and that the trustees can change the SoD should they see fit to do so.

Moving schools into the third sector, which we are doing when maintained schools become academies, is the biggest change of governance since the introduction of local management of schools in 1988 and the bringing together of schools in MATs is nothing short of a revolution. We need to share experience and draw on the expertise available in these very early days.

An effective scheme of delegation:

 

• promotes a culture of honesty, transparency and accountability
• ensures that the executive leadership is clear about which decisions the trustee board and its committees take
• ensures that the role of the executive leadership is fully understood throughout the MAT
• identifies responsibility for the appointment and performance management of the lead executive (usually a CEO/executive head) and individual academy heads
• identifies responsibility for HR policy and practice in each academy
• identifies responsibility for oversight of each academy’s budget
• identifies responsibility for assessment of risk in each academy
• identifies responsibility for oversight of educational performance in each academy
• identifies the mechanism for taking account of the views and experiences of stakeholders

Staying ahead of the game: forming or joining a multi-academy trust

Are you considering forming or joining a multi-academy trust? Would you like expert advice on the changing landscape, the options available, what the process involves and how to make sure you make the right decision?

ASCL Professional Development is running seminars this November that aim to give you the information you need to start your journey off on the right footing. Keynote speaker at two of these events will be Sir David Carter, National Schools Commissioner. To register your interest, email pd@ascl.org.uk

Further reading

To find out more about NGA membership go to www.nga.org.uk/Membership.aspx

Guidance Paper: MATs and Federations: Leading and governing groups of schools http://tinyurl.com/zfepp9p

Guidance Paper: Forming or Joining a Group of Schools: Staying in control of your school’s destiny http://tinyurl.com/jjqjlk7

---

Emma Knights is Chief Executive of the National Governors’ Association.

Designed with IMPACT

© 2024 Association of School and College Leaders | Valid XHTML | Contact us