Trust Members
The Trust Members are the equivalent to the shareholders of a commercial company. They have ultimate control over the Trusts Articles of Association. They have a number of statutory rights set out in the Articles. They lead HATs vision, aims, ethos and strategic direction by:
- Setting and ensuring clarity of vision, values, and objectives for the trust
- Agreeing the school improvement strategy with priorities and targets
- Appoint/ remove Members/ Directors/ Trustees
- Meeting statutory duties
- Adopting the compliance polices and processes ratified by Trustees
- Changing the articles of association when required
Our Trust has five members. More detailed information about our members can be found here.
Trustees
The Trust Board meets six times per year, plus an Annual General Meeting which is also attended by the Trust Members.
Our Trustees are responsible:
- To undertake the performance management of the Executive Headteacher
- To sign off the financial statements and annual report
- To ensure quality of educational provision including the standard of Teaching and Learning
- To challenge and monitor performance including Student Outcomes
- To manage finances and property
- To exercise reasonable skills and care in carrying out their duties
- To ensure compliance with charity and company law
- To ensure operation in accordance with the Funding Agreement
- To scrutinise Behaviour and Safety and levels of Attendance and Exclusions at the academies.
- To ensure compliance with statutory requirements including Safeguarding and Health and Safety.
- To appoint chairs of local governing bodies
They do this by:
- Meeting statutory duties
- Appointing the lead executive/ Headteacher/ Head of School
- Monitoring the educational performance of the school/s and progress towards agreed targets
- Performance managing the headteacher/ heads of school
- Engaging with stakeholders
- Contributing to school self-evaluation
- Ensure senior leaders have arranged for the required audits to be carried out and receiving the results of those audits
- Ensure senior leaders have developed the required policies and procedures and the school is operating effectively according to those policies
Overseeing financial performace, by:
- Setting the budget
- Monitoring spending against the budget
- Ensuring money is well spent and value for money is obtained
- Ensuring risks to the organisation are managed
In addition, and as charity trustees, our trustees must also ensure that they are complying with charity law requirements. Education trusts are charitable companies and the trustees are company directors who must comply with the company law requirements. Our Trustees also have complete discretion over what functions to delegate to each individual academy within the Trust through their academy committee.
The role of the trustee and the Seven Principles of Public Life can be found here.
Trustees are expected to join two of the sub-committees, either Trust Personnel, Trust Finance and or Trust Audit & Risk. The terms of reference for each of these can be found below:
Trust Personnel terms of reference
Trust Finance terms of reference
Trust Audit & Risk terms of reference
We also have the Trust Risk Register Working group who meet termly.
The trustees appoint the trust auditors and agree their cycle of work. They undertake a Trust Safeguarding and H&S review annually.
The Trust Board review the constitution, membership, and terms of reference for its committees each year. Including constitution, size and remit.
Our Trust has nine trustees. More information about them can be found here.
HAT Governor Council
Termly meetings of the LGB Chairs and Clerks chaired by the Chair of Trust and Governance professional. These meetings provided a trust update, governance update in each setting, enable trustees/ LGBs to share best practice and training sessions, bring a consistent, joined up HAT approach as the trust grows, offer Clerking support and sharing expertise and resources. It’s a forum to enrich trustee knowledge and to enable trustees to know what is happening at each LGB. The governance team are working on better quality governance.
Local Governing Body
Each Academy has a Local Governing Body to provide local governance. The Chair of each LGB is a Trustee. Each LGB. Academy LGBs carry out their functions in relation to their respective academy on behalf of the Trust Board and in accordance with policies determined by the Trust Board. The Trust’s Scheme of Delegation sets out clearly the delegation of powers, duties and responsibilities. The Trust Board has ultimate responsibility and accountability and retains the right to overrule a decision of the LGB and/or to remove delegated powers should they consider it to be in the best interest of the academy or the wider Trust.
Membership of each Academy LGB comprises:
- Headteacher/ Head of School (ex officio whilst in post)
- Parent governors – minimum of two
- 1x Support Staff Governor
- 1x Teaching Staff Governor
- Other suitable skilled individuals meeting the criteria for appointment
Who establish the local strategic direction by:
- Agreeing the school development plan and improvement strategy with priorities and targets
- Meeting statutory duties
- Monitoring progress towards targets
- Monitor and evaluate School and Student progress and attainment
- Monitor and evaluate the school’s action plan, Raising improvement plan and SEF
- Monitor and evaluate the planning, development and delivery of the curriculum of the school
- Be a source of challenge and support to the Headteacher/ Head of School and Senior leaders
- Act as a link governor on a specific issue/ with department, making relevant enquiries of the relevant staff, and reporting to the governing body through the committee structure on the progress on the relevant school priority
- Listening to and reporting to the school’s stakeholders: pupils, parents, staff, and the wider community
- Ensure the school staff have the resources and support they require to do their jobs well
- Recruit new members of the Local Governing Body as vacancies arise
Ensuring financial probity by:
- Being aware of spending against the budget
For governing bodies to carry out their roles effectively, governors must be:
- Prepared and equipped to take their responsibilities seriously
- Acknowledged as the accountable body by the lead professionals
- Supported by the appropriate authorities in that task
- Willing and able to monitor and review their own performance
Each LGB meets a minimum of six times per year and should comprise at least six members, requiring a minimum of four (or 50% plus one – whichever is the larger) to be quorate for any meeting. The term of office for any committee member shall be four years. This term of office does not apply to the Headteacher/ Head of School. Subject to remaining eligible, any committee member may be reappointed. Local Governors are recruited and appointed by ratification of the full LGB. Chairs of the LGB are appointed by the Trust Board.
Governance training is provided for Local Governors by the Chair of Trust, at their own academy and via the LA training programme. In addition, local governors will also have access to governance resources such as The Key, the EPM training schedule and the Peterborough City Council training facility.
Each schools terms of reference for the full LGB is agreed by the trust board annually and their Standards committee agreed by the LGB are available on their school websites. Details of individual committees can be found on the website of the relevant academy.