Recommendation 9

MATs are not restricted to a geographical region. For example, the largest MAT, the United Learning Trust, is responsible for 76 academy schools spread across England.19 The Department informed us that there was a weighting towards geography when making decisions on the conversion of maintained schools to academies and that it would much rather see a local trust take on a school that needs a sponsor, but noted that some trusts performed well across a wide geographical area. The Department told us that while it would look first at trusts nearby or within a reasonable travelling distance, this was not the only factor, especially where schools had “particular needs and would benefit from trusts with particular experiences”. For example, it was aware that in some areas there were challenges in school performance but also limited numbers of good-quality trusts, which could therefore direct decisions on geographical spread of MATs. It explained that it could also consider whether to starts a “new geographical cluster” that it could build over time.20