Darwen St James’ is a converter Academy. This means that the Governors chose to convert the school to an Academy and in October 2014 they joined Cidari Multi Academy Trust.
As an Academy Darwen St James’ Senior Leadership Team and Local Governing Committee have built on the strengths of the predecessor school.
Effective 27th August 2020 there is a requirement for all maintained Schools to publish specific financial information on their School website, including how many School employees (if any) have a gross annual salary of £100,000 or more in increments of £10,000. As an academy we also wish to make this information explicit -
At Darwen St James’ CEP Academy there are no employees of the single academy who fall into this category.
If you wish to find out information regarding the financial information of the Trust please use this link -
https://www.cidarieducation.
Since conversion, Darwen St James have been granted two Condition Improvement Funding (CIF) bids.
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2015-16 Fire safety and remediation work £64,437.00
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2019-20 Security and Fencing £70,713.00
The developments we have been able to make through this money have made our site more secure and also fully fire safe. We look forward to further ways we can continue to develop our academy for our children and community in the future.
The Schools Financial Benchmarking Tool helps schools compare their finances with similar schools and make comparisons between income, balances and workforce structures.
Why benchmark?
Benchmarking helps schools to:
- make better-informed decisions and triggers further discussion
- facilitate peer learning and exchange of ideas between schools and academies
- compare spending with other similar schools or academy trusts
- consider how to use resources to support high-quality teaching and education outcomes for pupils
- consider whether resource allocations are working or whether outcomes could be improved by doing things differently
Please use the link to the Financial Benchmarking tool for our academy:
https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/school?urn=140891
Cidari Multi Academy Trust
Cidari has a highly skilled Board of Trustees, approved by the Department for Education. The Board of Trustees delegate decision making for certain functions to a Local Governing Committee for each Academy. In Cidari each Academy has a Local Governing Committee (LGC). The LGC will continue to ensure that the needs of the Academy are monitored closely.
The structure of Cidari allows for more formalised, collaborative working whilst allowing the individual characteristics, distinctiveness and ethos of each academy to continue.
Cidari has a very small group of Members who are named for legal purposes. Members hold the trust board to account for the effective governance of the trust, the members themselves have a minimal role in the actual running of the trust. It is the trust board, not the members, who are the organisation’s key strategic decision makers. The MAT Board of Trustees has overall responsibility and accountability in law for the performance, site and overall running of the Trust and each of the Academies.
For further information about our Multi Academy Trust, Members, Trustees and LGC please click the following link:
https://cidarieducation.co.uk/governance/MembersDirs
What do the Members do?
The standard company structure for Multi Academy Trusts is five members who are similar to shareholders in a company (but in this volunteers without any financial benefit rather than investors), there is then also a Board of Trustees who are responsible for the strategic running of the trust. The Members sign the company documents for the company (which set out its core purpose, i.e. provision of education etc.), they also have the power to appoint the Trustees and amend the company documents. The Members attend one annual general meeting each year.
Role and Basis for Appointment to the Board of Trustees
The core governance functions of the Multi Academy Trust, (i.e. setting the direction of the Trust, holding the CEO and Headteachers to account and ensuring sound use of finances) are carried out by the multi academy trust Board of Trustees.
Within Cidari, Trustees have been appointed on the basis of the skills they can bring to the trust board. It is essential that this is made up of skilled individuals to ensure the success, both academically and financially, of the trust and the best outcomes for the learners within our Academies. Some of the Trustees are representatives of the Diocese of Blackburn Board of Education and Board of Finance.
Local Governing Committee
The local governing committees, set up for each of the Academies within the MAT, maintain their existing representation (unless serious Governance concerns have been evidenced) and are tasked with protecting the individual ethos of the Academy. Parents are elected to these local governing committees and so maintain an input into the governance of their Academy. However, as mentioned above it is also responsibility of the MAT Board of Trustees to ensure it protects the individual ethos of each Academy within the MAT (whether church or community) in accordance with the company documents. More information regarding local Governing Committees and how to become a Governor in one of our Academies can be found by clicking here.
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