Trustees are responsible for the same three core governance functions performed by the local governing body of each school:

• Ensuring clarity of vision and setting the strategic direction of the Trust 
• Holding the Trust CEO and school Headteachers to account for educational and staff performance 
• Ensuring financial probity and value for money  

As charity trustees, they must also ensure that they are complying with charity law requirements. Academy trusts are charitable companies and the trustees are company directors and must comply with company law requirements.

Governance and organisation Structure

The governance of the Trust is defined in the Memorandum and Articles of Association together with the Funding Agreement with the Department of Education.

The Board of Trustees (or Main Governing Body, MGB), meets on at least three occasions per year as do its two sub committees, Resources (including finance) and Standards.

The Board of Trustees is responsible for the strategic direction of the Trust.

The Trustees are responsible for setting strategic policy, adopting an annual plan and budget, monitoring the Trust by the use of those budgets and making major decisions about the direction of the Trust, capital expenditure and senior staff appointments.

The SAT Executive is the Headteacher group who meet a minimum of six times a year as a body and ensure that the LGB and Board level activity is aligned in a coherent and sensible way when it needs to be.

School Governors, within their Local Governing Bodies (LGBs), are responsible for implementing strategic policy, ensuring the appropriateness of annual budgets and capital expenditure projects for their Academy and monitoring performance against that budget and authorised capital limits.

The Senior Leadership Teams (SLTs) control the Academies at an executive level, implementing policies and reporting to their LGB. Each SLT is responsible for the day to day operation of their Academy, in particular organising staff, resources and students. They are responsible for the authorisation of spending within agreed budgets and for the appointment of staff following vetting and safeguarding recruitment processes.

The Trust’s CEO is the Accounting Officer.