introduction XXX
Three academy trusts are proposing to come together: Learning Partners Academy Trust (LPAT), Learning Partners Church Academy Trust (LPCAT) and Enlighten Learning Trust (ELT).
LPAT is a multi-academy trust containing schools without a religious designation. It dominates schooling in Guildford, currently including 17 secular schools include George Abbot School, Guildford County School, Kings College Guildford, Boxgrove Primary School, Burpham Primary School, Sandfield Primary School and Guildford Grove Primary School, as well as schools elsewhere in Surrey.
LPCAT and ELT include Church of England schools and have formal links with the Diocese of Guildford.
LPCAT itself is relatively new in its current form. It was previously The Newark Trust, the academy trust responsible for Pyrford CofE Primary School. In 2024, the Newark Trust was renamed and repurposed as Learning Partners Church Academy Trust, working closely with LP. It now includes a total of 5 CofE schools the others being Horsell CofE Junior School, Farncombe CofE Infant School, Lawrence CofE Primary School, Chobham and St Mary’s CofE Primary School, Byfleet.
ELT is a smaller CofE multi-academy trust comprising four CofE schools: St John’s CofE Primary School in Dorking, St Martin’s CofE Primary School in Epsom, The Priory CofE School in Dorking and South Holmwood CofE Primary School.
The three trusts are expecting to a merger into a trust, in January 2027.
That matters because a merger is not simply three groups of schools sharing services or working together. A multi-academy trust is one legal entity, governed by one Trust Board.
The merger therefore requires decisions about the governance of the new organisation: its Articles of Association, its Members, its Trustees, how those people are appointed and what powers or appointment rights are held by other organisations.
Those decisions will ultimately determine who governs every school within the merged trust.
A Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) is a single charitable company responsible for all the schools within it. Although individual schools may have their own Local Governing Bodies, ultimate responsibility sits with the Trust Board.
There are three main layers of governance.
Members
Members sit at the top of the trust’s governance structure. They are sometimes compared to shareholders, although they do not own the trust or receive profits.
They have relatively little involvement in day-to-day decisions, but they hold important constitutional powers. These include appointing some or all of the Trustees and, in certain circumstances, removing Trustees.
How Members themselves are appointed is set out in the trust’s Articles of Association. Depending on those Articles, existing Members or specified organisations may have the right to appoint new Members.
Trustees
Trustees are the people who actually govern the MAT.
Together they form the Trust Board and are both charity trustees and company directors. The Board is responsible for strategy, educational performance, finances, safeguarding and ensuring that the trust meets its legal obligations.
Trustees govern the trust as a whole, rather than representing individual schools.
The Articles of Association determine how Trustees are appointed. Some may be appointed by the Members, while the Articles can also give particular organisations the right to appoint Trustees.
Local Governing Bodies
Individual schools normally have a Local Governing Body (LGB).
However, an LGB does not have independent authority in the same way as the governing body of a maintained school. Its powers are delegated to it by the Trust Board.
The trust’s Scheme of Delegation sets out which decisions are made centrally and which are delegated to individual schools or LGBs.
In simple terms:
Members: appoint some or all Trustees
↓
Trust Board: delegates certain responsibilities
↓
Local Governing Bodies: individual schools
This is why the governance arrangements for the proposed merger matter.
The key questions are not simply who sits on individual school governing bodies, but who the Members and Trustees of the merged MAT will be, who will have the right to appoint them, and what powers will be delegated to individual schools.
The answers will determine where ultimate decision-making power sits across the new trust.
Articles of Association
The Articles of Association are effectively the constitutional rulebook of an academy trust.
They establish the trust’s governance structure and set out matters such as who can become a Member, who has the right to appoint Members and Trustees, how Trustees can be removed, how decisions are made and how the organisation itself is governed.
Changes to the Articles can therefore change who has formal influence over the governance of the trust.
This is one reason the proposed Articles for the merged trust are so important.
Scheme of Delegation
The Scheme of Delegation answers a different question: once the Trust Board has the legal authority, how much of that authority does it choose to exercise centrally and how much does it delegate?
It sets out which decisions are made by the Trust Board, which are delegated to executives, and which can be made by Local Governing Bodies or individual schools.
This might cover areas such as budgets, staffing like how many TAs, the school appoint, or recruiting say the headteacher, admissions, policies and the appointment of local governors.
Unlike the Articles, the Scheme of Delegation does not give an LGB independent legal authority. The powers exercised locally have been delegated by the Trust Board.
So what…?
Well done if you’ve stuck with me so far….
The so what is this… Members decide the Trustees, and Trustees decide the Schemes of Delegation. The Articles will state what can and can’t be done. But crucially the articles are decided by the Members (with some input from the DofE).
There is an important piece of this puzzle.
In a non-faith MAT, Members and Trustees are generally appointed through the mechanisms set out in the trust’s Articles. The trust can recruit people because of the skills, experience and perspectives it believes it needs.
CofE governance is different.
The religious character of a CofE school comes with formal governance protections.
When CofE schools become academies, the Church requires governance arrangements which protect their religious character. Depending on the model adopted, this can include formal rights for the relevant Church or diocesan body to appoint Members, Trustees and local governors.
That creates an important issue when CofE and non-faith schools are brought together in a single MAT. The constitutional arrangements of the receiving trust have to accommodate those protections.
And that can mean changing the Articles of Association of what was previously a non-faith trust.
This is the crucial bit.
If the new Articles give the Diocese or another CofE body the right to appoint Members or Trustees, those appointments are being made at the level of the MAT.
And the MAT is the legal entity responsible for all of its schools, including those without a religious designation.
This means that Learning Partners will be inevitably giving some of its control to the Diocese. How much is key – and whether this is too much will depend on your point of view.
[I am strongly secularist and therefore ANY interference from the CofE (or any religious authority for that matter] in our state schools is too much. ]
- How many Members will there be?
- Who will appoint them?
- How many Trustees will there be?
- Who will appoint them?
- What appointment or consent rights will the Diocese or other CofE bodies receive?
- And will those rights apply at the level of the whole trust?
We can already see the structures becoming intertwined
Canon Alex Tear is the Diocesan Director of Education for the Diocese of Guildford.
He is also currently recorded as a Member of Learning Partners Academy Trust, despite LPAT being a non-faith MAT. A member! This is the highest level of authority
He became an LPAT Member in September 2024, at a time when Learning Partners and the Diocese were already working together on the development of Learning Partners Church Academy Trust.
It raise a perfectly reasonable question:
Why did the Members of a non-faith MAT choose the serving Diocesan Director of Education as one of their Members while developing a new CofE trust structure with that Diocese?
Because ultimately, all this brings us back to the point of this website
