Multi-academy trusts should look at cutting their school leadership teams to save money, the former national schools commissioner has said.

Sir David Carter said many schools had reached a point where they were unable to cut much more, which meant trusts had to “radically think about what kind of staffing structures they need”.

In August, Sir David stood down after two and a half years as national schools commissioner, during which he was responsible for overseeing more than 7,000 academies.

Speaking exclusively to Tes about the key challenges facing the school system, he said: “The funding is difficult.”

While some schools had still not gone far enough in making efficiencies, Sir David said others had adopted a “really rigorous approach to how they’re going to make their finances sustainable”.

But he added: “I think we’re at the point quite soon, where people are going to have to really radically think about what kind of staffing structures they need. I don’t think we can cut much more - I think we’re going to have to really rethink this.”

Asked what form this should take, Sir David said: “Let’s talk about leadership structures for example.

“If a MAT creates an executive leadership team who oversees the trust, and your schools continue to have the same size of leadership team that they had when they were a single standalone school in the maintained sector or convertor academies, there’s a duplication there of resource.

“That might be difficult to sustain going forward.”

He went on: “Think about the ways in which quite a number of trusts - particularly in the secondary model - are bringing into the trust-level a director of maths, a director of English.

“Whether or not you still need the same volume [of those positions] at the school level, when you’ve already got someone who’s got that role [at MAT level]…I think there’s a debate around some of those things.”

However, he said there were different options for trusts wanting to restructure leadership teams.

“I’ve seen some examples where academies and MATs have worked on the basis of having a really small leadership team, maybe a head and a vice principal.

“But then they’re going to continue to have subject leaders in a middle leadership phase.

“[Alternatively] they say what we’re going to do is have a really large leadership team, maybe eight or nine people, but we’re going to then give those people a curriculum responsibility as well as a whole school responsibility, and then strip out the middle leadership level… I think both can work.”

Sir David said he had tried to push greater school collaboration via MATs during his time as national schools commissioner, because he “had a sense that we were facing this [financial] challenge two or three years ago”.

He said those MATs which had taken early action to restructure their leadership teams had “insulated themselves to a degree” from the financial pressure.

Sir David said it was “important that politicians recognise there’s a funding challenge” but added this was “not enough” and schools also had to play their part.  

He also said that calls for more school funding was “a logical response to the crisis that people believe they’re facing”.