Leadership

Hilary Power is the founding Chief Executive Officer and the appointed accounting officer for the Trust. Prior to her appointment to the role, she provided many years of outstanding leadership for Tennyson Road Primary School.

Governance 

Highly effective governance is underpinned by a common understanding about who is responsible for providing valuable input to decision making and who has the decision making responsibility.

Effective governance in the Trust will be supported through the following tiers:

• Trust Members – the guardians of the constitution (AGM 1x a year)
• Trust Board – the Directors / Trustees
• Trust Sub-committees – Finance, Risk and Audit, Curriculum, Standards and Pupil Welfare, Full Trust Board
• Local Governing Bodies (LGBs) – The Academy Governors and Committees

• The Central Team – the CEO and other senior management (education and operations)

The Trust Board has overall responsibility and ultimate decision-making authority for all the work of the Trust, including the establishment and maintenance of the academies, scrutiny and challenge of academy's education and financial performance.

In addition, the Board ensures an effective flow of communication between the LGBs  and the Trust Board.

Members

The Members play a crucial but limited role in ensuring the governance of the Trust is effective. They have a duty to exercise their powers to further the Trust’s charitable objective ‘to advance for the public benefit education in the United Kingdom’, which includes the power to appoint and remove Trustees.

The Board of Trustees

The Trustees are the accountable body and determines which functions it delegates to each school’s Local Governing Body. The Trustees are both charity trustees and company directors and focus on three core functions:

• ensuring clarity of mission, vision, aims and strategic objectives

• holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its students, and the performance management of staff

• overseeing and ensuring effective financial performance.

The Trustees apply the highest standards of conduct and ensure robust governance, as these are critical for effective educational and financial management.

They provide effective governance through:

• strategic leadership that sets and champions vision, ethos and strategy

• accountability that drives up educational standards and financial performance

• people with the right skills, experience, qualities and capacity

• structures that reinforce clearly defined roles and responsibilities

• compliance with statutory and contractual requirements

• evaluation of governance to monitor and improve its quality and impact.

To comply with the Trust’s charitable objectives, with company and charity law, and with our contractual obligations under our funding agreement.

Trustees as company directors: 

• act within their powers

• promote the success of the company

• exercise independent judgement

• exercise reasonable care, skill and diligence

• avoid conflicts of interest

• do not accept benefits from third parties

• declare interest in any proposed transactions or arrangements.

As an employer, the Trust has a range of wider obligations including compliance with employment law and health and safety.

The Trustees ensure regularity and propriety in the use of the Trust’s funds, and achieve economy, efficiency and effectiveness – the three elements of value for money. The Trustees also take ownership of the Trust’s financial sustainability and its ability to operate as a going concern.

In line with DfE recommendations, the Tennyson Learning Community has a committee responsible for finance, risk and audit.

This committee advises the board on the adequacy of the Trust’s internal control framework, including financial and non-financial controls and risk management arrangements, to direct a program of internal scrutiny and to consider the results and quality of external audit. 

Public access to governance information