Chief Executive Officer and Accounting Officer, The Brickfields Trust

Salary: Leadership scale 25 to 30 (England) £89,830 to £101,533

Contract type: Full time Permanent. Flexible working opportunities are available.

Reporting to: The Board of Trustees at The Brickfields Trust

Responsible for: The trust central team, Heads of Schools and senior school staff.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is also the Accounting Officer of the trust. The CEO has responsibility for informing and supporting the work of the board – including the board’s setting of the trust’s vision and strategy. The CEO is responsible for delivering the agreed strategy; overseeing all operations of the trust – including enabling educational and organisational improvement at scale; ensuring sustainability, compliance, and the mitigation of risk; and building strategic partnerships with a range of stakeholders to ensure both strong educational outcomes for pupils and the sustainable development of the trust.

The CEO will be accountable to the trust board for:

• Leading and overseeing the efficient, effective and compliant management of the trust and its member academies
• Providing strong strategic leadership towards the trust’s vision and goals
• The performance of all academies within the trust
• The safeguarding of children across the trust

Qualities

The CEO will:

• Uphold public trust in trust leadership and maintain high standards of ethics, behaviour and professional conduct, by modelling the Seven Principles of Public Life
• Build positive and respectful relationships across the trust and its wider community
• Promote the qualities, principles and successes of the trust both within and beyond the education sector
• Serve in the best interests of the trust’s pupils, staff and stakeholders

Duties and responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities listed below are indicative of the tasks the CEO will perform and are not intended to be an exhaustive list. The post holder will be expected to take on additional responsibilities appropriate to the role as they arise.

• Strategic leadership and development of the trust
• Build an open, transparent and effective relationship with the governing board and its committees
• Be accountable for all aspects of school improvement, quality of education and pupil outcomes across the trust
• Ensure that the organisation is an ‘employer of choice’ and is staffed by talented and skilled individuals at all levels
• Secures organisational sustainability and compliance
• Builds external relationships: fostering social and professional capital

Accounting Officer’s responsibilities

The Chief Executive Officer is the accounting officer of the academy trust. The responsibilities and duties of the accounting officer are set out in the Academy Trust Handbook 2024.

What does the accounting officer do

• The accounting officer role includes specific responsibilities for financial matters. It includes a personal responsibility to Parliament and to ESFA’s accounting officer for the trust’s financial resources.
• Accounting officers must be able to assure Parliament and the public of high standards of probity in the management of public funds, particularly regularity, propriety and value for money.
• Accounting officers must adhere to The Seven Principles of Public Life.
• The accounting officer must have oversight of financial transactions, by:

• ensuring the academy trust’s property and assets are under the trustees’ control and measures exist to prevent losses or misuse
• ensuring bank accounts, financial systems and financial records are operated by more than one person
• keeping full and accurate accounting records to support their annual accounts.

The accounting officer’s annual statement

The accounting officer must complete and sign a statement on regularity, propriety and compliance each year and submit this to ESFA with the audited accounts. The accounting officer must also demonstrate how the trust has secured value for money in the governance statement in the audited accounts.

The accounting officer’s duty to raise concerns

The accounting officer must take personal responsibility (which must not be delegated) for assuring the board that there is compliance with the funding agreement and handbook. The accounting officer must advise the board in writing, if action it is considering is incompatible with the articles, funding agreement or handbook. Similarly, the accounting officer must advise the board in writing, if the board fails to act where required by the funding agreement or handbook. Where the board is minded to proceed, despite the accounting officer’s advice, the accounting officer must consider the board’s reasons and, if the accounting officer still considers the action proposed by the board is in breach of the articles, the funding agreement or handbook, the accounting officer must notify ESFA’s accounting officer immediately in writing.