DfE notice to improve for Mercian Educational Trust

On 12 December 2025, the Department for Education published a notice to improve for Mercian Educational Trust. The letter, dated 10 November 2025 and addressed to the trust’s chair in Malvern, confirms the trust must strengthen financial management and show evidence against set timelines. It is signed by Sue Lovelock, the DfE’s West Midlands regional director, and Lindsey Henning, who leads schools financial support and oversight. The message is clear: fix the controls, prove the changes, and keep the department updated.

A notice to improve is a formal directive from the DfE when a trust breaks rules in the Academy Trust Handbook. It is about finance and governance, not about teaching quality or Ofsted grades. Since the Education and Skills Funding Agency closed on 31 March 2025, the DfE now issues and monitors these notices directly.

In this case, the department lists breaches across key parts of the handbook. They include board oversight of finance, appointing and empowering a chief financial officer, running effective internal scrutiny, producing and sharing monthly management accounts, publishing details of staff whose total benefits exceed £100,000, filing audited accounts and returns on time, and completing the School Resource Management self‑assessment. The letter describes the failures as repeated and systemic, while acknowledging some positive steps already taken by the trust.

Because a notice is in place, several freedoms are temporarily withdrawn. The trust must get DfE approval before agreeing staff severance or compensation packages, writing off debts or losses, disposing of significant assets, entering long leases on land or buildings, carrying forward unspent grant beyond the usual cap, or pooling the General Annual Grant across schools. Expect more checks and slower back‑office decisions while these approvals are sought.

There is a clear timetable to hit. By the end of November 2025 the trust needed to submit its external review of governance. By 5 December 2025 it had to share interim internal‑scrutiny evidence and confirm next year’s programme. By 31 December 2025, audited financial statements, the auditor’s management letter and the internal‑scrutiny report must be with the DfE. Monthly management accounts for November, December and January are required, and a School Resource Management Adviser deployment must be commissioned by December. Routine returns, including the Academy Accounts Return and the self‑assessment checklist, must also be on time.

For teachers and support staff, your classroom work continues. You may see tighter purchasing rules, extra sign‑off steps and requests for prompt budget information. Larger decisions, such as severance agreements or long‑term leases, will pause until the department signs them off. The DfE also asks the trust to support staff wellbeing during this period.

For parents and carers, this action is about how the trust manages money, not about the curriculum or how lessons are taught. Schools remain open as normal. Some trips, refurbishments or new equipment may take longer to approve because extra checks are now required.

For students, lessons, clubs and exams carry on. Most changes sit behind the scenes in finance and governance. If a planned purchase or repair takes longer than usual, that is likely due to the extra approvals in place while the notice stands.

The department will monitor progress through regular case reviews and can add further conditions if needed. If the trust fails to comply, the DfE can treat it as a funding‑agreement breach, refer issues to the Charity Commission or Insolvency Service, or-in the worst case-move to terminate the funding agreement. That is the endpoint of the process, not where it starts.

One final point for transparency: the trust must publish the notice on its own website within 14 days of the GOV.UK publication and keep it there until the notice is lifted, so you should be able to read it by 26 December 2025. The notice will be lifted once every condition is met and the trust is fully compliant with the latest Academy Trust Handbook.