MAT Due Diligence

The context around joining a trust has changed considerably, and it changes what a school should be checking.

The academy conversion support grant closed to new voluntary applications from 1 January 2025, with no replacement announced, and the Trust Capacity Fund ended alongside it. Schools converting voluntarily now meet the costs themselves, usually from reserves. That makes the decision a genuine investment, and investments deserve scrutiny.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 has also narrowed some of the differences between trusts and maintained schools. From September 2026 academies are required to teach the National Curriculum and to follow national teacher pay and conditions, and local authorities gained the power to direct academies to admit particular children. Trust-level inspection has been placed on a statutory footing, with a framework still to be developed and inspections not expected before the 2027 to 2028 academic year.

The practical effect is that some of the freedoms trusts once promoted have narrowed, so the question becomes sharper. What does this particular trust actually offer your school that it could not achieve on its own or elsewhere? That is the question due diligence is designed to answer.

If a governing board reads only one document about a prospective trust, it should be the scheme of delegation.

It sets out what the trust board decides, what committees decide, and what is left to your local governing body and your headteacher. It is where the promise of local autonomy either holds up or quietly disappears.

The questions worth answering are specific. Who appoints your headteacher and who manages their performance? Who sets the staffing structure and approves restructures? Who signs off the budget, and at what level does spend require central approval? Who decides curriculum, assessment, behaviour policy, and admissions? Who determines the school day and term dates? And can the trust change the scheme of delegation unilaterally after you have joined?

That last point catches schools out repeatedly. A generous scheme of delegation offered at the point of recruitment can be revised by the trust board later without your agreement. Understanding whether that is likely, and what has happened to other schools in the trust, is exactly the kind of thing an independent review can establish.

A trust’s financial position affects your school directly, because funding is held and allocated at trust level.

We review the published annual report and financial statements, reserves and how they are held, the pattern of surpluses and deficits across schools, related party transactions, and any published notices from the Department for Education. We also look at the funding model itself, since a percentage top slice, a flat charge, and general annual grant pooling each create a very different relationship between a school and the centre.

The important question is not simply what the trust charges. It is what schools receive for it, whether the centre is affordable at the trust’s current size, and what happens to your budget if pupil numbers fall. With primary rolls projected to decline significantly over the coming decade, a trust’s financial resilience matters more than its current surplus.

Trusts recruiting schools are, quite reasonably, presenting themselves at their best. Nobody is being dishonest. But a prospectus is a marketing document, and there are things it will not contain.

• Schools that have left the trust, and why
• Headteacher turnover across the trust over the last three years
• Restructures carried out since schools joined, and how staff experienced them
• Whether central charges have risen since schools were recruited
• How the trust has handled a school in difficulty
• Whether the scheme of delegation has been narrowed over time
• What the central team can genuinely support at its current capacity
• How SEND is resourced in practice rather than described in policy

Much of this is discoverable. Some sits in published accounts and records, some in patterns visible across published inspection reports, and some in conversations with leaders who are already inside the trust. Those conversations are often the most valuable part of the work, and they are considerably easier for an independent reviewer to have than for a headteacher who is about to become a colleague.

Boards often ask us what they should be asking. These are the questions we would want answered, in writing, before any commitment.

• What will our local governing body actually decide, and can that change?
• What is the top slice or funding model, and what has it been over the last five years?
• What specifically will our school receive centrally in return?
• Which policies would we adopt, and which could we keep?
• What happens to our staff terms, pay policy, and support staff contracts?
• How is SEND funded and supported across your schools?
• How would our reserves be treated on transfer?
• What are your growth plans, and how would they affect us?
• How do you support a school that gets into difficulty?
• May we speak to headteachers in your trust, including one who joined recently?
• Has any school left your trust, and what happened?
• Who would our headteacher report to, and how is their performance managed?

How a trust responds to these questions is itself evidence. A confident, well-run trust welcomes them. Reluctance to answer, or an offer to discuss it informally rather than in writing, tells you something worth knowing.

Transferring between trusts, sometimes called rebrokering, raises everything above and adds a layer of difficulty.

A school in this position has usually already been through one transfer, so staff are wary and parents may be unsettled. There is often a relationship that has broken down, which makes it harder to think clearly about what comes next. And the move requires agreement between the trusts involved and the Department for Education, so it cannot be done unilaterally.

Due diligence matters even more here, for a simple reason. A school that moves for the second time cannot afford to have chosen badly again. We help boards in this position separate what went wrong last time from what they actually need next, which is not always the same thing.

Specialist settings joining a mainstream trust need to ask additional questions, and they are frequently overlooked.

Does the trust understand specialist provision, or would you be the only setting of your kind? Who at the centre has SEND expertise, and what is their background? How would EHCP compliance, therapy provision, and staffing ratios be understood and funded? How would your relationships with commissioning local authorities be handled? And would trust-wide policies on behaviour, curriculum, and assessment fit your pupils, or would you spend years asking for exemptions?

These questions matter because the pupils affected are the least able to absorb a poor decision. Due diligence in school mergers tends to concentrate on finance and governance. We make sure inclusion gets the same attention.

A due diligence report is not a verdict. It is evidence for a decision that remains entirely yours.

Most schools proceed, and go in better informed, with clearer expectations and better terms because they knew what to ask for. Some pause and put questions to the trust before committing. A minority decide the fit is wrong and look elsewhere, and they are usually relieved to have found out before signing rather than after.

In every case the board has a written record of what informed the decision, which matters if anyone asks about it later. That record protects governors and trustees personally as well as protecting the school.

There is no statutory requirement for a school to commission independent due diligence. Governors and trustees do, however, have a duty to act in the best interests of the school and to take decisions on an informed basis, and a documented review is strong evidence that they did.

Yes, and thoroughly. Trusts examine finances, staffing, premises, safeguarding, and outcomes before accepting a school. It is entirely reasonable for the scrutiny to run in both directions, and most well-run trusts expect it.

Evidence rather than promises. The scheme of delegation, the funding model and what it buys, the financial position, the track record with schools like yours, how staff have been treated through change, and whether the trust’s values genuinely match your own. The willingness to answer difficult questions in writing is itself informative.

Some things can change. A scheme of delegation can generally be revised by the trust board, and central charges can be reviewed. That is not necessarily a warning sign, but you should understand what could change, how it would be decided, and what has happened to schools that joined before you.

Treatment varies between trusts, and it is a question to settle explicitly rather than assume. Some ring-fence a converting school’s reserves for its own use, some pool them. Either approach can be defensible, but you should know which applies and have it in writing.

Staff transfer under TUPE on their existing terms, with continuity of service. What matters over the longer term is trust pay policy, how restructures have been handled elsewhere in the trust, and whether support staff terms have been changed after previous transfers.

A focused review can be completed in a matter of weeks. A full review takes longer, particularly where conversations with leaders in the trust are part of the scope. We work to your timeline, and we would always rather move quickly than have a board decide without evidence.

Rarely. A targeted review of the highest risk areas can be turned around at short notice and still change what a board asks for. If you feel rushed, that is itself worth noting. A trust confident in its offer will usually accommodate a reasonable request for time.

Yes, and this is one of the most useful versions of the work. Reviewing several trusts against the same criteria gives a governing board a fair basis for comparison, rather than a set of impressions formed from three very different presentations.