The Bodies that the Trust is Accountable to

The Trust is a charitable company limited by guarantee and it runs academy schools, which are state funded independent schools.  This means that it is accountable to and must demonstrate good governance to the following bodies:

1. The Secretary of State for Education, who runs the Department for Education (DfE), is the Trust's Principal Regulator.  The Trust has entered into funding agreements with the DfE for its schools. The DfE publishes details of schools on the Get Information About Schools (GIAS) website this includes information on how the Trust and its schools are governed. 
2. The Registrar of Companies, commonly referred to as Companies House, is the Trust’s Registrar.  The Trust must comply with company law and file all statutory documents required by Companies House.  Information about Castle Trust is published on the Companies House website.
3. The Trust is an exempt charity, so it does not have to register with the Charity Commission.  It must, however, comply with charity law and certain statutory guidance issued by the Charity Commission.
4. The Trust's schools are periodically inspected by the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) and audited by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). Ofsted reports for the Trust’s schools can be found on the Ofsted website.

Governance Structure

The Trust has three tiers of governance.  The Local Advisory Committees (LACs) are accountable to the Board as is the Audit & Resources Committee.  The Board is accountable to the Members, but also to outside agencies, such as the Department for Education and Companies House (see above).

The Trust's Governance Toolkit (below) provides more detail on the individual roles at each of the three tiers. 

Constitution

The Articles of Association and Local Advisory Committee (LAC) Constitution and Terms of Reference set out how the Members, Board and LACs must be constituted or how many people sit on each body and how they are appointed.  These requirements are summarised below.

Members

The Trust must have at least three Members, comprised of the original signatories to the Memorandum of Association, which was signed when the Trust was registered as a company (incorporated) and any Members appointed in accordance with the Articles of Association. 

The Board

The Board must be constituted in accordance with the Articles of Association and must have at least three Directors.  There is no upper limit on the size of the Board, but there are different restrictions for each category of Directors, as follows:

Local Advisory Committees (LACs)

Each LAC must be constituted in accordance with the LAC Constitution and Terms of Reference, which is appended to the Governance Toolkit (below). This may be varied from time to time by the Board.