Multi-academy trust

Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) or academy chain is an academy trust that operates more than one academy school. Academy schools are state-funded schools in England which are directly funded by the Department for Education and independent of local authority control. The terms of the arrangements are set out in individual Academy Funding Agreements. The group of schools in a multi-academy trust work together under a shared academy funding agreement.

BESA, the British Educational Suppliers Association states that in November 2019 there are 1,170 Multi Academy Trusts in England that manage at least two schools: 598 have five or fewer schools, 259 have 6-11 schools, 85 have between 12-25 schools and 29 have 26 or more schools.

The Education Act 1944 established a national system of primary and secondary education, with schools under the overall supervision of ‘local education authorities’ who were responsible for funding all such schools. This legal called maintaining then in 1988 schools gained legal autonomy.^{[clarification needed]}

Sponsored academies were introduced from the early 2000s by the Labour government. The sponsor paid the capital cost and the revenue costs were paid by central government. A sponsor set up a charitable trust and individual contracts were signed with the Department for Education (DfE). These were all schools that had been failed the Ofsted criteria. By 2010 there were 203 such schools, out of a total 3333.

The Academies Act 2010 was passed by the incoming Conservative Government, It provided a bespoke statutory mechanism for maintained schools, both primary and secondary, to be forced or allowed to ‘convert’ to academy status. The DfE adopted various ‘model funding agreements’ for new academies. New academies called ‘free schools’ could be built. A local authority needing to build new school in its area had to seek proposals to establish an academy, in the form of a ‘free school’. They were no longer allowed to construct it themselves.

In 2014, eight Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) were appointed as DfE civil servants. with the responsibility for approving new academies and intervening to address performance issues in academies. They have significant powers to influence to academies and local authority maintained schools.

The academy trust model of governance was the one imposed on all:

By 2017, the concept of academy chain was in retreat, the multi-academy trust was the predominant model of governance. The MAT contracts with the Secretary of State directly and schools run by a MAT have no separate legal identity. Each school is, in law, simply the local site through which the MAT delivers the central contract. Local staff and any local ‘governing body’ have only the role assigned to them by the MAT board itself