Mowbray Education Trust found to have breached financial guidelines

John Ferneley College, the Melton secondary school which is part of Mowbray Education Trust

An education trust which manages six schools across the Melton area has been found to have made a serious breach of approved financial guidelines.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has issued Mowbray Education Trust with a Notice to Improve (NtI) – a written order to ‘improve financial governance and financial management at the trust’.

The Trust is responsible for the education of hundreds of children across the Melton district, including at the town’s John Ferneley College and Brownlow Primary School, the county’s largest primary school.

Melton’s Sherard School and The Grove School, Somerby School, Ab Kettleby School and Iveshead School (Shepshed) are also managed by the Trust, as well as Oasis Preschool and Retreat in the town.

Specific details on what the breach refers to have not been released but the implications for the Trust if it does not remedy the situation are serious and could even involve funding being denied to the organisation or its contract to manage local schools being terminated.

A letter sent by the ESFA to Mowbray Education Trust chair, Anne Frost, states that it ‘has assessed that the trust’s breaches of the Academy Trust Handbook (ATH) relating to financial governance and financial management are significant enough to warrant a Notice to Improve’.

It continues: ‘This letter and its annexes serve as a written notice to improve financial governance and financial management at the trust. It reflects continued concerns regarding governance and oversight of financial management by the Board’.

The ESFA has temporarily removed the Trust’s delegated powers to make certain transactions, including special staff severance payments, compensation payments and writing off debts and losses, without informing the agency first.

Mowbray Education Trust say the breach of guidelines relates to a single payment.

A spokesperson told the Melton Times: “The notice to improve relates to an isolated matter, identified in Autumn 2023, regarding compliance with the Academy Trust Handbook.

“We are treating this very seriously, and have been working in close conjunction with the ESFA, which has recognised the positive action we have taken to date, to rapidly rectify this.

"We are confident in the actions we are taking to resolve this as quickly as possible.”