University of Lincoln Academy Trust

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Executive Management Board

Executive Management (ID 1154)

  • Steve Baragwanath
    Chief Executive Officer (Trustee)
  • Susan Boor
    Director of Primary Education (Executive Principal HPA & HBA)
  • Liam Davé
    Principal (University Academy Long Sutton)
  • Sue Goodsell
    Principal (Monkshouse Primary Academy)
  • Tiffany Hebron
    Principal (Wrangle Primary Academy)
  • Ben Mawford
    Chief Financial Officer
  • Sheila Paige
    Principal (University Academy Holbeach)
  • Katharine Saywell
    Principal (Gosberton House Academy)

 

In creating the Academies Act in 2010 and the subsequent changes in the 2011 Education Act a prime rationale was to allow Headteachers to manage their institutions free from the bureaucratic local authorities; giving heads the freedom to innovate and get best value for money. Giving Principals this freedom through earned autonomy, with meaningful checks and balances is fundamental to UOLATs philosophy and we have found it to be very effective in running the Trust.

In establishing the Trust there were three key principles. Firstly the Trust must focus on the progress and well-being of all its children and young people, secondly giving our Principals the freedom to manage through earned autonomy and thirdly holding them to account for their academies performance whilst ensure we had best value for money with maximum resources available for teaching and learning.

The University of Lincoln Academy Trust is committed to providing a wide range of high quality services to enable its academies to focus on their core business of raising standards, improving progress and supporting for all our young people. We believe it is important to have good value for money and to achieve that we use a combination of in house and commissioned service; all services are designed and commissioned with the view that they can expand with any potential growth in the Trust. Each service has a Trust employee who is the lead officer for that service.

We delegate the full budget to each academy and charge each year the direct costs of that service based on agreed criteria. This ensures full transparency to staff and governors. It is also our policy that each academy maintains its own surplus, if an academy has a deficit, then the trust would make a loan to that academy, but will not pay off any deficit.

Although the CEO has operational responsibility for running the Trust, there is a strong belief in team work in the Trust and so most decisions within the delegated powers for the CEO are taken through the Executive Management Board. This comprises of the CEO, Director of Primary Education (Executive Principal) Principals and the CFO. 

Operational Management of the Trust

University of Lincoln Academy Trust sets the level of delegation to its executive staff and its Academy Governing Committees. It believes in delegating to the lowest level where accountability can be secured ensures that the structure is flexible enough to move quickly and address issues effectively. The Trust has a very experienced CEO and Director of Primary Education (Executive Principal) and many more very experienced staff at various levels in our academies.

The Trust’s high level of delegated authority to its senior staff has been very beneficial to the Trust because of their commitment, skills and performance. Thus the Trust wishes to continue to support that philosophy.

The Trust firmly believes the Scheme of Delegated Authority should vary and depend upon the performance of any academy in the Trust and they expect the CEO to implement changes where necessary and report back to the Trust. The scheme defines where responsibility lies for decision making; this does not preclude discussion or engagement at other levels where the decision maker feels they can benefit from additional advice or guidance.

The CEO will if necessary also place constraints of budget spend where overspends are starting to occur. Executive staff are expected to draw up their own plans for major maintenance or new buildings and after discussion at the AGC, will seek approval by the Board of Trustees. These plans will not just appear they will have been discussed at length over a period of time.

The government’s decision to totally separate Trustees from AGC’s membership means finding a method of engaging Chairs of Governors in the management of the Trust is challenging. UoLAT has chosen to do this by regular meetings of the Executive Management Board and Chairs of Governors Committee