School headteachers have long had their core functions defined through the Headteachers’ Standards. Now, this new definition of the CEO role sets out the purpose, expectations of ethics and professional conduct and outlines the six unique, interlinked domains that a CEO is accountable for as the executive leader and accounting officer of a school trust:
- Strategic leadership: Trust values, culture and strategy
- Quality of Education
- Finance, sustainability and compliance
- People strategy
- Governance and accountability
- System leadership and civic responsibility
As the sector body for school trusts in England, CST has carried out this work in consultation with serving CEOs because systematic change has created this relatively new leadership position within the education sector, with trusts held accountable as charitable organisations by the Department for Education, regulators and stakeholder communities. There is currently little agreement across the sector on what this title means in terms of job descriptions, operational standards, accountability measures or salaries. This new framework includes the statutory and regulatory functions of the Accounting Officer and defines the core elements of professional conduct.
This framework has been developed for Trusts of any size to adapt to their context, recognising that in trusts with larger central functions, more may be delegated from the CEO to other individuals. It also recognises that CEOs of some types of school trusts, such as faith-based trusts, may have specific additional core responsibilities. The core responsibilities framework includes how CEOs work with trustees.
This work has been developed with inputs from an advisory group of CEOs from school trusts, support from CST’s Strategic Partner Ambition Institute, an evaluation of the literature relating to the role within education and its characteristics within other sectors and the responses to a consultation on the role of CEO.
Leora Cruddas, chief executive of CST, said: "As the sector body for school trusts, the Confederation of School Trusts is pleased to publish this framework codifying the role of CEOs within school trusts. This important contribution to knowledge-building for the school trust sector will give boards and executive leaders guidance to underpin key aspects of leadership development and governance by offering a framework to inform executive performance review, executive development, organisational design and recruitment.”
Tom Rees, executive director of Ambition Institute, said: "Ambition Institute is proud to be supporting the Confederation of School Trusts with this important work which we hope will help boards and executive leaders to better understand how to structure and support the CEO role to best serve the pupils within their schools. At Ambition, we look forward to building on this work by using the guidance to inform the design of our Trust Leaders programme, which helps prepare existing and aspiring CEOs for success in their roles.”
