Academy trust governance documents

The rule: what an academy trust must hold and publish

The Department for Education's guidance on what academies, free schools and colleges should publish online says academy trusts must publish, "in an easily accessible format on their website": "a memorandum of association", "their articles of association", "the names of trust members and academy trustees", "the relevant business and financial interests of members, trustees, local governors and accounting officers", "their funding agreement", "any supplemental funding agreement" and "up-to-date details of governance arrangements".

The Academy trust handbook 2026, effective from 1 October 2026, adds the detail. Paragraph 1.55 requires the trust to publish "up-to-date details of its governance arrangements in a readily accessible format", including "the structure and remit of the trust's members, board of trustees, committees and local committees/governing bodies (the trust's scheme of delegation for governance functions), and the full names of the chair of each", the register of interests, and each trustee's and local governor's attendance over the last academic year. Paragraph 1.56 requires the agenda, approved minutes and papers of every meeting of the trustees, committees and local committees to be available for public inspection on request. Paragraph 2.4 requires the board to "approve a written scheme of delegation of financial powers that maintains robust internal controls".

These are not optional extras. The handbook says compliance with it "is a condition of the funding agreement between each trust and the Secretary of State for Education", and the DfE's Academy trust governance guide (updated 20 July 2026) says trusts "must comply with the requirements set out in their articles as a condition of their funding agreement with the Secretary of State for Education and as required by charity law".

The documents, and what each one does

An academy trust is a charitable company limited by guarantee and an exempt charity, so its governance documents come from company law, charity law and its contract with the Secretary of State. The main documents are:

1. The memorandum of association: the short document the founding members signed to form the company.
2. The articles of association: the trust's constitution. The governance guide says they set out "a framework for establishing trust governance structures, including: appointing and removing trust members and trustees" and "establishing committees", and they also set the charitable objects, the trustees' powers and the rules for meetings. Most trusts' articles follow one of the DfE's model articles, adapted when the trust was formed.
3. The funding agreement: the contract with the Secretary of State under which the trust is funded. The DfE's model funding agreements explain the structure: "If you are forming a multi-academy trust, use the master funding agreement for the trust as a whole. Each of the schools within the trust will then use the appropriate supplemental funding agreement." A single academy trust has one agreement. Older trusts may hold agreements on earlier models with different terms.
4. The scheme of delegation for governance functions: the roles and responsibilities of the members, the trust board, committees, local committees and executive leaders – who decides what (section three).
5. The scheme of delegation of financial powers, with the financial procedures that sit under it: spending limits, authorisation levels and who signs what.
6. Terms of reference for each committee; the handbook requires the audit and risk committee to "have written terms of reference" (3.13).
7. The registers: the register of members and the register of people with significant control under company law, the register of business and financial interests the handbook requires (1.51), and the risk register the trust "must maintain" and the board must fully review "at least annually" (2.43).
8. The pay policy, which paragraph 2.32 says must document the process for determining executive pay.
9. The minutes, agendas and papers of the members, the board and every committee, and the annual report and accounts, whose governance statement the governance guide says must provide details of governance arrangements, "including what they have delegated to committees and in MATs, to local committees".

Underneath sit the trust's policies, many of them statutory; our guide to statutory policies for schools lists them. Policies say how the trust works; the governance documents say who has authority to decide.

The academy trust scheme of delegation

The scheme of delegation is the document trustees, executive leaders and local governors consult most, because it answers the everyday question: is this ours to decide? The governance guide says: "The scheme of delegation is an important document. It must set out the structure and delegated remit of the trust's members, its board and any committees (including any local committees in a MAT)." It should set out which powers the board keeps and which it delegates, where key functions such as budget-setting and oversight of the senior executive leader are exercised for each academy, how governance roles relate to executive roles, and when the scheme will be reviewed and what would trigger a change. Our guide to the local governing body covers what a scheme gives a local committee.

Most trusts in fact hold two schemes, and confusing them causes trouble:

• The scheme of delegation for governance functions sets the remit of each governance tier. The handbook requires its substance – the structure and remit of members, board, committees and local committees – to be published (1.55).
• The scheme of delegation of financial powers sets financial authority. Paragraph 2.4 says the board "cannot delegate overall responsibility for the academy trust's funds" but must approve the written scheme, and that it "should be reviewed annually, and at the next available board meeting when there has been a change in trust management or organisational structure that would impact the effectiveness of any existing scheme of delegation".

Many trusts combine them in one matrix: each function in a row, a column for each of members, board, committees, local committee, chief executive and headteacher, and a mark showing who decides, who recommends and who is informed. That works, provided the financial limits in it match the financial procedures exactly and both carry the same version number and approval date. The Confederation of School Trusts publishes scheme of delegation checklists, which the governance guide recommends.

Three limits apply to any scheme. It cannot give away the board's legal duties: trustees "cannot give up their legal duties to a third party – even to the members". It cannot delegate anything the articles or the handbook reserve to the board, such as approving the balanced budget, which the board "must approve and minute" (2.10). And it cannot authorise anything the funding agreement requires the DfE to approve.

Keeping the documents current

The governance guide says "Effective trusts review their articles regularly to keep them up-to-date and reflective of the trust's development and growth." Changing them is a formal process. Members amend the articles by special resolution under section 21 of the Companies Act 2006, subject to charity law, and the National Governance Association's guidance on changing academy trust articles of association sets out the sequence: trustees agree the proposed amendments; the changes are "sent to the DfE to gain written consent"; the amended articles go to the members for approval; they are registered with Companies House; and a copy goes to the DfE. Section 26 of the Companies Act requires the amended articles to reach the registrar "not later than 15 days after the amendment takes effect".

The rest of the set follows a calendar most trusts can fix in advance:

• Every board cycle: the register of interests checked at the start of each meeting, which the handbook says the board "must keep ... up to date at all times" (1.54), and the risk register reviewed as the board decides.
• Within 14 calendar days of any change to members, the chair, trustees, the accounting officer or the chief financial officer – and, in a trust with several academies, headteachers and local governors – the change notified to the DfE through Get Information about Schools, with the website and Companies House updated (2.54 to 2.58).
• Annually: the scheme of delegation of financial powers (2.4), the scheme for governance functions on the timetable it sets itself, committee terms of reference, and the governance statement in the annual report.
• On any restructure: a new academy joining, a local committee merged or a new executive post created means the scheme of delegation of financial powers is reviewed at the next available board meeting (2.4), not at the next annual review, and the scheme for governance functions is best reviewed with it.
• Periodically: an external review of governance, which the governance guide says effective boards arrange regularly, "particularly ... when the trust is undergoing any significant change, for example before expansion".

Give every document a version number, an approval date and the minute that approved it, and keep superseded versions. When a decision is questioned two years later, the question will be which scheme was in force on that day.

Publishing, inspection and retention

On the website, the governance guide is specific about form: "Published governance information on a trust's website must be in a readily accessible format. For example, it should be on a webpage without the need to download or open a separate document." A governance page that is a list of PDF links meets the publication duty for the articles and funding agreements, but the structure, remit, chairs, register of interests and attendance records belong on the page itself. The annual report and accounts must be published on the website by 31 January (handbook 4.4).

On request, the trust must make available the agenda, approved minutes and papers of every board, committee and local committee meeting (1.56), and may exclude material about a named employee or proposed employee, a named pupil or candidate for admission, or "any matter which, by reason of its nature, the trustees are satisfied should remain confidential" (1.57). Write minutes and papers on the assumption that they will be read.

For retention, three rules overlap. The Companies Act requires the trust to keep copies of members' written resolutions and minutes of general meetings for at least ten years (section 355). The handbook requires records verifying provision under the handbook and funding agreement for "at least 6 years after the period to which funding relates" (6.5). And the articles, funding agreements and each approved version of each scheme should be kept for the life of the trust, because they show the authority under which every past decision was taken. Our guide to board minutes retention covers the minutes themselves.

Where the scheme of delegation is actually read

The scheme of delegation is consulted most often not at board meetings but in messages. A headteacher texts the chief financial officer: "Can I sign the minibus lease today or does it need to go to the finance committee?" The CFO replies from the version of the scheme on their laptop, which may or may not be the one the board approved in July. The chief executive messages the chair to ask whether, with a headteacher off sick, the local committee can sign off the school's improvement plan this term; the chair says yes. A trustee shares a draft revision of the scheme in the trustees' group chat, and three trustees reply that it looks fine.

Each of those is an act of governance: an interpretation of the scheme, a variation of a delegation, an informal approval of a draft. None of it is in the documents this guide describes. If the minibus lease is later questioned by the auditor, or the improvement plan by Ofsted, the trust can show its published scheme but not the message in which somebody decided how it applied. And a draft agreed by thumbs-up in a group chat is not a scheme the board has approved.

The practical answer is to send every question about the scheme to one place – the governance professional – and to record the answer, with the version of the scheme it relied on. Where trustees, executive leaders and local governors do discuss governance by message, a channel the trust controls keeps that discussion with the trust rather than on personal phones. ComplyChat is designed for that: local governors and trustees without a trust account join with a mobile number verified by SMS, everyone added is told the channel is on the record, and on paid plans the lasting record files into the trust's own Microsoft 365 once its tenant is connected. It does not hold or version the governance documents themselves; that is the governance professional's job.

A question for the next board meeting: if the auditor picked a decision taken last term under delegated authority, could the trust show which version of the scheme was in force and who confirmed the delegation applied?

Questions people ask

What are examples of governance documents?

For an academy trust, the governance documents are the memorandum and articles of association, the funding agreement (master and supplemental agreements in a multi-academy trust), the scheme of delegation for governance functions, the written scheme of delegation of financial powers, committee terms of reference, the registers of members, interests and people with significant control, and the minutes. For other charities the governing document may be a constitution or trust deed instead of articles.

What is a governance document?

A governance document sets out who has authority to make decisions and how: the constitution that creates the organisation's powers, and the documents the board writes to delegate them. In an academy trust the articles of association are the constitution, and the schemes of delegation record what the board has delegated, to whom and within what limits.

Do academies have a governing body?

Yes. The board of trustees is the governing body of an academy trust and is accountable for every academy in it. Many multi-academy trusts also have local committees, often called local governing bodies, but the governance guide describes a local committee as "a committee of a board in a multi-academy trust": it has only the powers the board delegates through the scheme of delegation.

What is the typical structure of trust governance?

An academy trust typically has three tiers: members, who appoint trustees and hold the board to account; the board of trustees, which governs the trust; and, in a multi-academy trust, local committees to which the board may delegate functions for an academy or group of academies. The Academy trust handbook 2026 requires the trust to publish the structure and remit of each tier and the names of each chair (paragraph 1.55).

Official guidance and your next step

The primary sources are the Academy trust handbook 2026 (paragraphs 1.51 to 1.57, 2.4, 2.32, 2.43, 2.54 to 2.58, 3.13, 4.4 and 6.5), the DfE's Academy trust governance guide (sections 2.3, 4.3.6, 4.8 and 4.9), its guidance on what academies must publish online, its model articles and model funding agreements, and the Companies Act 2006. The NGA, the Confederation of School Trusts and the Chartered Governance Institute publish practical checklists. Quotations are from those documents as read on 3 October 2026. For a charity outside the academy sector, our guide to a charity's governance framework covers the equivalent documents.

This guide is a practical summary for academy trusts in England, not legal advice. Your trust's articles and funding agreements govern; take advice before amending either.

Then do one thing: ask the governance professional for a one-page index of the trust's governance documents, listing for each the current version, the date and minute of approval, the next review date and where it is published. Any document without all four is the first to fix.