Mercian Educational Trust given DfE Notice to Improve

The Department for Education has issued a formal Notice to Improve to Mercian Educational Trust. The letter was sent to the chair of trustees, Sharon Tilki, on 10 November 2025 and published on 12 December 2025. We’ve set out what this means for you as a parent, member of staff, or student, and the dates you can mark in your diary.

Why the notice? The department says the trust breached several rules in the Academy Trust Handbook (2023 to 2025). These include the duty on the accounting officer to assure the board that the trust is complying with funding rules, the requirement to have a chief financial officer, and the need for strong internal controls and risk management. The letter also cites missing or late monthly management accounts, incomplete publication of high pay bandings on the website, gaps in internal scrutiny, and delays to audited accounts and required returns.

What changes right now? Certain financial freedoms are suspended until the department is confident the trust is back on track. That means the trust must get approval in advance for things like special severance or compensation payments, writing off debts, major asset disposals, long leases on buildings, and moving or pooling core government funding known as GAG. This is designed to keep tight oversight while improvements are made.

For families and pupils, school continues as normal. This is about the trust’s financial governance, not classroom teaching. The department will monitor progress through regular reviews and can escalate if improvements stall, including changing the conditions or, in the most serious case, ending the funding agreement. That is not the default path-but it is set out as a possible consequence.

The immediate timeline is clear. By 31 December 2025, the department expects audited financial statements, the management letter and the internal scrutiny report. The Academy Accounts Return must be submitted by its usual deadline. The School Resource Management Self-Assessment Checklist for 2023/24 was due by the end of November 2025, with 2024/25 due by the standard date.

There are near-term checkpoints too. The trust must produce monthly management accounts that meet the 2025 Handbook standard-covering income and spending, cash flow and a balance sheet-for November 2025 through January 2026, and share these with the department by the end of January 2026. Evidence of internal scrutiny activity, including committee or board minutes showing discussion, was due by 5 December 2025.

Two pieces of external support are baked in. First, a School Resource Management Adviser (SRMA) deployment focused on financial governance must be commissioned by December 2025, with the resulting report and an action plan shared. Second, an External Review of Governance commissioned in July 2025 must be submitted to the department, with the trust showing how it will act on each recommendation.

The notice also sets a test of follow-through. The trust needs to provide evidence that recommendations from the SRMA and the External Review of Governance have been actioned-or explain why not-and demonstrate that the breaches listed have been addressed. This condition runs until all actions are complete, with progress discussed at regular engagement meetings with the department.

Transparency matters here. The department requires the trust to publish the notice on its website within 14 days of it appearing on GOV.UK and to keep it there until the notice is lifted. The letter is signed by Sue Lovelock, Regional Director for the West Midlands, and Lindsey Henning, Director for Schools Financial Support and Oversight, confirming the formal status of the intervention.

A quick primer, so you can read updates with confidence: in an academy trust, the board is responsible for oversight; the accounting officer takes personal responsibility for compliance; a qualified chief financial officer oversees day-to-day finance; and internal scrutiny gives independent assurance that controls and risk management are working. Monthly management accounts should go to the chair and be considered by the board. These aren’t optional extras-they’re the basics of running a public body with children’s education at stake.

If you’re a member of staff, the department explicitly encourages trusts to support colleagues during periods of change and signposts the Education staff wellbeing charter. If you’re a parent or student, you can expect the trust to keep you informed as milestones are met. The notice will be lifted once all conditions are satisfied and the trust is fully compliant with the latest Handbook.