Academies Conference 2025

Governance: secure foundations before growth

Ambition, commitment, and dedication from those charged with governance and management is admirable and key to success, but without strong foundations in place, trusts may struggle to achieve their objectives. Better before bigger was the key advice from the day.

Reviewing and confirming your governance foundations is key to long-term stability and improvements. The following principles were noted as being essential to secure successful growth.

• A shared sense of purpose.
• An aligned direction of growth.
• A clear role and clear expectations of each individual.
• Financial clarity, financial visibility, and financial foresight.
• Open and two-way communication, with a shared language of data, performance, and expectations.

Assurance vs. reassurance

The Academy Trust Handbook states, “Boards should seek evidence-based assurance, not just comforting updates”.

Reassurance can be seen to be subjective with informal updates and inconsistent reporting. Whereas assurance is objective, measurable, and evidence-based. Assurance can be provided by measuring progress against KPIs, timely and consistent financial reports, compliance reviews, and internal scrutiny.

Quality assurance provides those charged with governance and management with confidence, which is backed by evidence. This is essential for effective governance, financial stewardship, and accountability.

The benefits of prompt and honest communication with the Department for Education

As more trusts adopt deficit budgets and rely on reserves, an increasing number are experiencing financial difficulties.

Where the Department for Education (DfE) must be called upon for financial assistance, prompt and honest communication is key to maintaining a strong relationship. This allows the DfE to work with the trust to understand the options available to the trust, allowing them to secure the future of the schools and the future education of its pupils.

If a trust is proactive in setting meetings with the DfE, prepared to share accurate and timely financial information, and willing to listen to options available, then any decisions become more collaborate between DfE and trust and could prevent the issuance of a Notice to Improve.

Changes in the payments industry

Lloyds Banking Group shared insight into the implications of the changes and advances in technology; there has been a change in the banking and payments industry.

• Consumer expectation is that we all want payments quicker, with the underlying expectation that this will be near enough instant.
• There are more providers in the market based on ‘online only’ provisions and niche providers of individual or unique services.
• There is a continued move towards digitisation with a decline in physical payments, a move away from physical cards, and the ability to share information through open banking.

Digital payment solutions for the education sector

There are a few options available in the banking sector, which would mean that the payment processes can become more efficient and more secure. The solutions discussed during the session included the use of virtual cards (reduces fraud with transaction limits and approval workflows); embedded payment solutions (provides clarity and control over transactions); and supplier matching tools (strengthens the supply chain and manages working capital efficiently).

All academy trusts handle multiple payments and suppliers, and therefore some of the solutions above for fast and secure transactions are essential for ensuring efficient financial management and mitigating the risk of fraud.

Efficiency in finance

Increased budget scrutiny and accountability, the need to understand real-time financial positions, and the growing complexity of trust accounts due to expansions and mergers are all driving the sector towards the need for increased efficiency in finance functions.

Financial efficiency can come from several areas. Andi Brown, SAFF Education, recommends:

• implementing an integrated finance and budgeting system
• move towards a single bank account, and introduce an automated bank reconciliation
• move towards reporting on a single Trust balance sheet
• ensuring standardised reporting across all schools
• introducing dashboards for real-time oversight and KPIs.

The need to drive efficiencies could see trusts looking to implement new time-saving software. While new systems can bring many benefits, Brown cautions trusts to remember best practice in change management to ensure the rollout is as seamless as possible.

• Plan change management and ensure training is provided for those impacted. Don’t underestimate the setup and onboarding time.
• Clean and migrate the data before it is transferred. Don’t bring across any data that won’t be needed going forwards.
• Roll out in phases. This can help embed good habits without change becoming overwhelming.
• Monitor feedback and adopt if necessary.

Estates and property matters

Joanne Burton, VWV, delivered an important update on the changes to estate and property management for academy trusts, drawing attention to two new developments from the government and DfE.

School Estate Management Standards

On 23 April 2025, the DfE published the School Estate Management Standards. The standards set out practices and processes required to effectively manage the school estate. This document is designed to support schools in managing their estates effectively. It is built on good estates practice, whilst also observing legal requirements. Burton encourages trusts to review this document and work through from the Level 1 – Baseline to Level 3 – Full effective.

Spending Review, June 2025

The recent spending review suggests an increase in real terms to the core schools budget. There will be an increase in annual maintenance investment in line with inflation, rising to £2.3 billion in 2029-2030; and there is a commitment to rebuild over 500 schools through the Schools Rebuild Programme with £2.4 billion in each of the next four years. The Schools Rebuild Programme has been supported by the UK Infrastructure Plan, resulting in a further 250 schools entering the program—a commitment to rebuild 750 schools through 2035.

If you have any questions about the content covered or would like a discussion about circumstances specific to your academy trusts, please contact Rebecca Crowther, Matt Doyle-Healey, Helen Blundell or Dave Darlaston.