Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve the accountability of multi-academy trusts' management boards.

The Department requires a high level of accountability and transparency from academy trusts. Academy trusts’ status as companies, charities and public sector bodies means that they are all subject to rigorous accountability systems. The academy trust board has collective accountability and responsibility for the academy trust and assuring itself that there is compliance with regulatory, contractual, and statutory requirements. The trustees must comply with the trust’s charitable objects, with company and charity law, and with their contractual obligations under the trust’s funding agreement with the Secretary of State.

The Department sets clear standards and expectations for governing boards through, for example, the Governance Handbook and Academy Trust Handbook, and through the Department’s model articles of association and funding agreements. The Department has also published detailed Trust Quality Descriptions which define what the Department want trusts to deliver in their governance and leadership.

Where non-financial or financial non-compliance or governance failure is identified, including by trust executive leaders, the Department or the Education and Skills Funding Agency respectively will intervene in a way that is proportionate to the risk and preserves education provision. This can include issuing a trust with a Notice to Improve or, in the most serious cases, termination of the Funding Agreement.