Being able to expand to take on more schools will be the biggest challenge facing academy trusts next year, a new survey of academy leaders suggests.
In the poll of academy trust senior leaders, more than half said that growing in size was a top strategic priority for them in 2022-23.
But the Confederation of School Trusts’ (CST) research also shows that many trust leaders expect expanding in size to be the biggest challenge they face.
The finding comes as the government aims to ensure that all schools are either in or moving toward multi-academy trusts by the end of the decade.
The CST’s new report, including the findings from a survey of more than 300 accounting officers - academy trust senior executives - is published today as the organisation prepares to hold its annual conference in Birmingham.
Here are its key findings.
Quality of education and growth are top priorities for multi-academy trusts
The survey asked trust leaders what their top three strategic priorities are for 2022-23.
The most common answer was improving the quality of education, which was identified by 75 per cent of accounting officers.
The next most common answer was growth, which was highlighted by just over half of the respondents (57 per cent).
And the third most popular answer was workforce and people strategy, which was chosen by almost half of the academy trust leaders (48 per cent).
Financial sustainability is a priority for single academy trusts
A breakdown of responses by trust size shows how larger MATs have differing priorities from the smaller trusts and single academy trusts.
The report breaks the responses down into four groups: single academy trusts, those with between two and 10 schools, those with 11 to 20 schools and those with more than 21 schools.
Financial sustainability was the next most popular strategic priority for single academy trusts.
Half of the accounting officers in standalone academies highlighted financial sustainability as a top three strategic priority. This was twice as many as in the largest trusts, where 25 per cent of leaders highlighted it.
MATS with less than 10 schools most likely to be targeting growth
Less than half of single academy trust leaders identified growth as a top strategic priority (47 per cent).
The group with the highest proportion of accounting officers identifying growth as a top strategic priority was MATs with between two and 10 schools, where 65 per cent identified it as a top priority.
For MATs with between 11 and 20 schools, 44 per cent identified growth as a top priority, and just 13 per cent of accounting officers in MATs with more than 20 schools did so.
The Department for Education White Paper set out the goal for all state schools in England to either be in or moving towards “strong” MATs by 2030, and for trusts to have at least 10 schools.
Growth expected to be a challenge
Trust leaders were also asked which of the priority areas would be the most challenging for them.
By far the most common answer was achieving growth, which was chosen by 42 per cent of the trusts’ senior leaders.
This proportion was more than three times higher than for the next most popular answers: financial sustainability and improving education were both chosen as the biggest challenge by 13 per cent of accounting officers.
Recruitment the biggest workforce challenge
Trust leaders were also asked to identify their biggest workforce challenge.
Recruitment was the most common response, with half of trust leaders identifying this.
Some 17 per cent of respondents said equality, diversity and inclusion, and another 12 per cent identified renumeration and also professional development.
One respondent said: ““Generally we are OK for recruitment but in certain shortage subjects this is a challenge. It can also be a challenge in specialist support staff roles such as IT network manager.”
Academy trusts face challenge over SEND support
The survey also asked academy trust leaders what their top priorities are for improving the quality of education, the activities through which this will be achieved in the coming school year, and the potential barriers for trust leaders to overcome.
Some 68 per cent of respondents said they would use professional development to build teaching skills and 59 per cent said they would use it to build up their teachers’ specialist subject knowledge.
More than half of respondents (53 per cent) also said they would focus on SEND support.
But SEND support was also highlighted as an area that will be most challenging for trust leaders - chosen by 28 per cent of respondents.
Budget, workload and Covid identified as barriers
Accounting officers were also asked to identify which barriers their trusts will need to address to deliver their priorities for educational quality.
Budget was the most commonly identified response, chosen by 60 per cent of academy trust leaders, followed by workload (51 per cent) and managing the impact of Covid (44 per cent).
Most trusts have an education recovery strategy
The report shows that around two-thirds of trusts (65 per cent) have an education recovery strategy.
Leaders were also asked what elements were included in their recovery strategy. Just under half of respondents ( 49 per cent) said the Recovery Premium, but less than a third identified the use of a school-led tutoring grant.
In the report’s conclusion, the CST’s deputy chief executive, Steve Rollett, says that, amid system-level reform, rising cost pressures and the Covid-19 pandemic, trusts are continuing to focus on educating children.
“We can see this in the three quarters of trusts who say that improving the quality of education is among their top three strategic aims,” he says.
“But it is also fair to say that trusts are having to do this while also planning for what may be a vital period of organisational change precipitated by the government’s ambition for all schools to be in a trust by 2030: more than half of trusts say that growth is one of their strategic priorities in 2022-23.
“On the ground, and in the boardroom, these strategic challenges do not sit in isolation from one another. For example, the trusts that are likely to be most favourably placed for growth are likely to be those with the financial capacity, workforce and model to support school improvement.”
