Governance

Governance structure

Our trust has three levels of governance. Our members are the protectors and custodians of our trust and make sure that our values are respected and upheld. They hold our trustees to account for the governance of our trust. Our trustees set the strategic direction of our trust. They are responsible for compliance with all financial regulations and are accountable to our members and the Department for Education. The third tier is a local academy board who are accountable to the community in which they serve. They are tasked with meaningful engagement with local stakeholders and provide our trustees with expert intelligence from the local tier to drive strategy. In some instances, a local academy board is responsible for two or three academies in their local area.

Our board of trustees meet six times a year as a full board. Our board has three sub-committees: finance, audit and risk and remuneration. As part of the drive to strengthen intelligence gathering and dissemination between the tiers, the chair of trustees will meet with the chairs of each local academy board prior to our trust board meetings. Communication following board meetings is then fed back to the local tier.

Our trust has an internal head of governance to ensure:

• members and trustees receive assurances from our executive
• compliance with governance regulations and laws
• local academy boards carry out meaningful support and challenge of their academies
• local intelligence from the local tier is directed to our board

Our governance documents, including the scheme of delegation, terms of reference and register of interests can be found in our document library.