Ministers have relaxed the threshold for government scrutiny of multi-academy trusts spending money on firms with links to the trust.
Currently, rules on related-party transactions require academy trusts to get prior approval from the Education Skills and Funding Agency for the supply of goods or services by a related party if the contract is worth more than £20,000.
But in the latest Academy Trust Handbook, the rules now state that prior ESFA approval is needed for related-party deals worth more than £40,000.
This is one of a series of changes in the latest edition of the Academy Trust Handbook, which has been published today alongside new guidance on how the DfE makes decisions on moving schools to and from multi-academy trusts.
In a foreword to the new handbook, academies minister Baroness Barran said that this year’s edition was a simpler, shorter and more sharply focused document than before.
She added: “For example, we are making changes to the approval level for related-party transactions, reflecting a more balanced approach in this area; we have simplified how we describe some aspects of trust governance; and we have more clearly expressed how internal scrutiny can best be applied.”
Trusts get extra month to submit budget forecast
Other changes include trusts receiving an extra month to submit their budget forecast return.
The guidance says that academy trusts must return the forecasts in a specified form by the end of August - extended from July.
Last month, David Withey, chief executive of the ESFA, admitted that some multi-academy trusts’ budget forecasts “weren’t worth the paper” they were written on last year because an announcement on teacher pay came after some MATs had submitted them.
He told a School Resource Management Summit organised by the ESFA that the budget forecast return had been extended because of this.
This year, schools and trusts are still waiting for the government to publish the independent School Teachers’ Review Body report and its decision for teacher pay in 2023-24 - meaning they are facing uncertainty over next year’s budgets with only a few weeks of term remaining.
Rules on MATs’ executive leaders
The new handbook also sets out how the roles of accounting officer and chief financial officer should not be occupied by the same person.
It says: “The board must also appoint, in writing, a named individual as its accounting officer. This should be the senior executive leader. The individual must be a fit and suitable person for the role.
“The roles of senior executive leader and accounting officer must not rotate. The roles of accounting officer and chief financial officer should not be occupied by the same individual. The accounting officer should be employed by the trust. The trust must obtain prior ESFA approval, if it is proposing, in exceptional circumstances, to appoint an accounting officer who will not be an employee.”
