How to build governance support in your trust

Get advice on developing the best governance support for your boards to improve their effectiveness. Use our templates to save time when auditing your current arrangements and consulting stakeholders, so that you're clear on the level of support your trust needs.

Updated

on 14 January 2025

School types: All•School phases: All•Ref: 40512

Contents

Your requirements
What are the options?
Step 1: audit your trust's existing governance support
Step 2: consult with your governors and governance professionals
Step 3: consider how you want clerking to work
Step 4: write your proposal
Step 5: work with your CEO and senior leaders to gain support
Step 6: get approval from your board of trustees
Step 7: align your structure with your scheme of delegation and terms of reference
Step 8: set up a central storage platform
Step 9: communicate to your trust how governance support will work
Review your governance support regularly
See how other trusts have done it

This article is about building governance support in your trust – see our other articles to find out how to develop a governance structure and how to implement it.

Your trust must appoint a governance professional to support the board of trustees who is someone other than a trustee, principal or chief executive of the trust. This is set out in section 1.42 of the Academy Trust Handbook and in section 4.5.1 of the Academy Trust Governance Guide.

Aside from that, it's up to your trust to decide on the governance support structure that best suits your context.

A popular model, especially in larger trusts, is to have:

A dedicated governance lead/governance coordinator in the central team, and
1 or several governance professionals who provide support, advice and clerking for all boards

Pros and cons

Streamline communication and