The trust must publish on its website in a separate readily accessible form the number of employees whose benefits exceeded £100k, this should be displayed in £10k bandings, for the previous year ended 31 August. [2.32 ATH]
Many trusts assume that they have this covered due to the fact that this note is contained in their published financial statements on their website, however, this is to be disclosed in a separate readily accessible form. In determining the benefits, trusts should include salary, employers’ pension contributions, other taxable benefits and termination payments.
Where an academy trust has entered into an off-payroll arrangement with someone who is not an employee, the amount paid by the trust for that person’s work for the trust must also be included in the website disclosure where payment exceeds £100k as if they were an employee.
For trusts with more than 250 employees they are required to publish information on the trusts websites about the gender pay gap within their organisation under the Equality Act 2010. [2.33 ATH]
We recommend that growing trusts ensure that they monitor staff numbers frequently, so they do not unknowingly and unintentionally breach this requirement.
The trustees must agree the whistleblowing procedure and publish it on the trust’s website. [2.44 ATH] The board should ensure that it schedules in a meeting date to review and update the trusts policies where necessary. From experience a lot of trusts do this but then fail to update the website copy. This can be managed by having someone directly responsible for this as well as having your internal auditor conduct a website compliance review.
Trusts must also publish on its website up-to-date details of its governance arrangements. [2.50 ATH] This should cover:
- The structure and remit of the trust’s members, board trustees, committees and local governing bodies (the trust’s scheme of delegation for governance functions), and the full names of the chair of each committee
- For each of the trust’s members serving at any point over the past 12 months, their full names, date of appointment, date they stepped down (where applicable)
- Relevant business and pecuniary interests including governance roles in other educational institutions must be published on the website for each member, Trustee and local governor serving at any point over the last 12 months. This should also include the Accounting Officer. [5.48 ATH]
- For each trustee and local governor serving at any point over the past 12 months, their full names, date of appointment, term of office, date they stepped down (where applicable), who appointed them
- The attendance records of trustees at board and committee meetings over the last academic year
- The attendance records at local governing body meetings over the last academic year for each governor
Hopefully this is one that doesn’t apply, but if a trust has been issued with a NtI (notice to Improve). The trust must publish the NtI on its own website within 14 days and retain it on the website until the NtI is lifted by the Department. [6.19 ATH]
Whilst the above considers the list of musts relating to the website contained within the ATH we would urge academy leaders and trustees to take the time to understand all the requirements in the ATH. There are several other areas of information which should be disclosed on a trusts and academy website which include:
- Admission arrangements
- Ofsted reports
- Test, exam and assessment results
- Performance measures website
- School opening hours
- Curriculum
- Remote education
- Behaviour policy
- Anti-bullying policy
- Pupil premium and recovery premium
- PE and sport premium for primary schools
- Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
- Complaints policy
- Values and ethos
- Safeguarding policy and details of the DSL (designated safeguarding lead)
The next step
For more information on Academy trust website compliance please contact your local education specialist.
