Resources for trustees

This discussion paper sets out why and how trust governance can evolve to focus more on forward strategy than compliance, engaging a broader range of voices and better serving our communities.

Succession planning is critical for trust boards to ensure stability, continuity, and effective governance over time. By identifying and preparing future leaders, boards can maintain their strategic direction, preserve organisational knowledge, and avoid disruptions during leadership transitions.

Risk management is the process by which risks are identified, their severity assessed and cost-effective actions are taken to address, or mitigate, them to bring them down to acceptable levels. This guidance provides a risk template for trusts as a starting point for a bespoke approach.

Board evaluation is too often viewed as a compliance activity — a mechanical process of checking off items on a list with little real value for the board. But meaningful evaluation can be transformational.

This role description draws on Department for Education guidance, the Academy Trust Governance Code, and CST frameworks sets out some of the key qualities for a good chair.

It is crucial that trustees conduct themselves in a responsible manner, in line with their responsibilities as both charity trustees and company directors.
This model code of conduct outlines principles to follow both as individual trustees and corporately as a whole board.

This document outlines the role of a school trust governance professional and their key responsibilities.

The role of a member of a school trust is one of the least well understood positions in a trust. This document sets out the key qualities of a member and their relationship with other aspects of trust governance.

The scheme of delegation is a vital document within a trust. It is a document that is, and should be, bespoke to every trust in order to describe how the trust board has decided to delegate responsibilities within the organisation. These checklists have been devised to help trusts develop a clear and comprehensive scheme of delegation.

The proposition of governing a school trust is fundamentally different from governing a maintained school. While there may be comparable challenges in maintained schools, problem-identification and solutions are often specific to trust governance and need a different approach.