Finance
Our Finance team is led by a Finance Director who is a qualified accountant, well supported by a central finance staff team. Great Academies ensures that all statutory returns required of the DfE, ESFA and company law are adhered to. The Trust is subject to annual audit and undertakes an annual internal audit, ensuring propriety, regularity and legal compliance.
The Trust accounts and financial health are public documents and freely available. To 2020, they illustrate a very healthy financial position for the Trust, which we are committed to maintain.
Our finance team works with principals and academy-based staff to provide monthly management accounts, and supports the reporting of these to Local Governing Committees six times a year. The Trust expectation is that all academies will operate within annual budget generating a small annual surplus, in line with the requirements of maintaining reserves under the Trust reserves policy.
Our finance team works with principals and academy-based staff to ensure annual forecasts and 3-year budget forecasts are produced. This way we can utilise reserves sensibly and act in advance to mitigate against potential future risk.
Being part of Great Academies includes:
- regular meetings with those responsible for finance in our academies and a suite of trust-wide financial policies and procedures
- provision of regular financial performance reports including management accounts and year end audited financial statements
- provision and management of a single payroll service
- finance monitoring and reporting to Board and academy governing bodies; and
Annual Reports and Financial Statements
Annual reports and financial statements for the years 2018 up to and including 2023 can be accessed below:
Funding Agreements
Gender Pay Report
Higher Paid Staff
The number of employees whose employee benefits (excluding employer pension costs) exceeded £60,000 was:
| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | |
| £60,001 – £70,000 | 8 | 8 | 14 | 9 | 6 |
| £70,001 – £80,000 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| £80,001 – £90,000 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| £90,001 – £100,000 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| £100,001 – £110,000 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| £110,001 – £110,000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| £120,001 – £130,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| £130,001 – £140,000 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| £140,001 – £150,000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
