Jim McMahon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim McMahon on 2016-01-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to prevent the E-ACT Academy chain from dismissing community governors from its school governing bodies.

Edward Timpson

In a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT), individual academies are all under the control of the trust board, as the legal entity. A trust is allowed to exercise its choice about whether and how to construct its local governing bodies for each academy. The composition of those boards and the range of functions delegated to any such boards, are all a matter for the board to determine. In all cases the board remains accountable for all of the academies in the MAT. We expect Government bodies to drive strong governance so that standards remain high. We trust these boards to decide on the most appropriate arrangements for their trust. They may choose to delegate duties to local governing bodies, but trustees maintain overall responsibility. E-ACT has reviewed its governance arrangements and is planning to change its regional and local governance structure.

The Secretary of State can intervene where a trust is in breach of its funding agreement due to a serious breakdown in governance.

Fewer, higher quality and more highly skilled boards overseeing groups of schools is central to the Government’s strategy for improving the quality of school governance. It is also the key to schools realising a wide range of other educational and financial benefits.