When you'll need to show that your board is providing effective governance
Having an overview of where your board is effective, and understanding where to target improvement, is vital to providing good governance of your trust. You're probably already using self-evaluation, skills audits and external reviews to do just this.
There are some occasions, though, when you'll need to be able to demonstrate this to other bodies, including showing evidence.
If you're looking to grow your trust
Guidance on commissioning high-quality trusts and the trust quality descriptions (annex A) define what the Department for Education (DfE) wants trusts to deliver. Read our summary to help you get to grips with this guidance.
The DfE's regional directors will use the trust quality descriptions, and how they apply to your trust, to help guide commissioning decisions (see pages 8 to 10 of the guidance for the types of commissioning decision).
If you're aiming to grow, you'll need to be able to demonstrate that your trust has the capacity to support improvement for the schools you take on. The regional directors will assess the quality of your trust by looking at evidence across the 5 pillars of trust quality.
Your trust board will need to be able to provide evidence of how you meet the trust quality descriptions in the governance and leadership pillar. Use our checklist below to help you do this.
Your trust's members are required to assure themselves your governance is effective
Safeguarding trust governance is a crucial part of their remit, and they have the power to step in if they consider that governance is failing.
Members shouldn't be involving themselves in the regular governance of your trust. They might ask you questions, though – including at the trust AGM – in order to fulfil this requirement.
Ofsted will look at governance when trust-wide inspections begin
Section 57 of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 has established the legal framework for Ofsted to routinely inspect academy trusts. There is currently no official proposed start date for these inspections.
Ofsted will evaluate:
- Quality of education
- Governance and executive leadership
- Promoting wellbeing
- School improvement
- Management of resources
The DfE hasn't published any specific detail or a framework for trust-wide inspection yet. However, it has established some principles to guide policy development:
- Inspections should:
- Focus on how well the trust performs, not just on meeting basic compliance
- Consider progress over time, standards and inclusion, but also the important role that trusts play in their community in supporting all pupils, not just those attending its own academies
- Check how well leaders know their trust's strengths and weaknesses and how they can improve
- Allow flexibility for different trust sizes and maturity, and be supportive of innovation and different ways of working
- Inspections should not:
- Be mainly about compliance or box-ticking
- Discourage trusts from taking on weaker schools
- Force all trusts to work in the same way
- Ignore that improvement takes time
- Add unnecessary burden
Read more about this on pages 168 to 173 of the DfE's policy summary notes.
Use our checklist to keep track of governance evidence
Our friends at Independent Governor Support (IGovS) helped us put this document together.
It’s based on the strands within the governance and leadership pillar of the trust quality descriptions, with an additional category covering how you manage your governance. In 1 of the columns, you can add links to documents from GovernorHub or your own file system, so you have everything to hand when it’s needed.
If you're having an external review of governance, share the checklist with your reviewer.
Questions for trustees to demonstrate effective governance
Your board can use these questions to reflect on its own effectiveness. They'll help you to prepare for the kind of questions that the members may ask you at an AGM.
- How do you know that the trust's charitable object is being met?
- How does the structure of the trust from the board downwards lead to improved outcomes for pupils?
- How do you hold the headteacher/CEO to account for the performance of each school within the trust?
- How do you monitor standards in each school?
- How do you know this method of monitoring is effective?
- How do you make sure the appropriate financial oversight is being undertaken, and that the trust and its schools have sufficient resources to remain solvent?
- What are the biggest risks to success for the trust?
- How do you monitor the likelihood and impact of those risks?
- How do you make sure significant risks are mitigated?
- How do you keep on top of developments in the education sector and stay appropriately prepared for changes that may impact the trust?
- How do you work collaboratively with other stakeholders in your community to support all pupils to achieve?
- How does the board of trustees make sure it has the right skills to discharge its responsibilities?
- How does the structure of the trust's central team make sure that there is enough support for each of our schools?
Our associate education expert Brendan Hollyer helped us with these questions.
Use our template to help you prepare
You could use it as an ongoing, live document, or something to fill in and think about before members have their AGM. There's space to list evidence and assign actions and ownership.