Guidance

Publish a summary of your academy trusts’ financial arrangements: guidance

Published 15 July 2026

Applies to England

Overview

To increase transparency on trust financial arrangements, as set out in the Every child achieving and thriving white paper, a new requirement has been introduced in the Academy trust handbook 2026.

From October 2026, multi-academy trusts must publish a summary statement of their financial arrangements annually on their website alongside their audited accounts.

The statement should explain how funds are distributed across your schools and show how much is spent on each school in the trust.

Prepare your summary statement

Your summary statement must clearly:

• explain how funding flows across your trust, including:
  • whether you pool any income or reserves
  • how central services are funded
  • how much is spent on each academy

When publishing your statement, you should ensure that:

• it aligns with your annual audited accounts, including any notes relating to central services and funding
• it is published alongside the accounts on your website
• information is presented clearly and is accessible to parents, carers and the local community

How to structure your statement

You can choose the format of your trust’s summary statement.

We have provided an example summary statement to help you prepare your own summary to outline how funds are distributed across your academies.

The example summary is organised into 4 themes:

• trust overview
• financial operating model
• central services
• academy expenditure

Theme 1: trust overview

Refer to Get Information about Schools for details about your trust and academies.

Theme 2: financial operating model

Academy trustees decide the financial operating model for their trust, working with academy leaders.

Each trust should choose the approach that best fits its structure, schools and pupils. There is no single required model. You must explain which model you use and how it aligns with your trust’s strategy.

Trusts can choose to use some, all or none of the following options:

Income pooling

You may pool some or all income relating to your academy into a single fund before distribution and then delegate budgets to individual academies. This includes but is not limited to:

• Department for Education (DfE) grants, such as the general annual grant (GAG)
• Pupil Premium
• income from other sources

Top slice or recharging

Academy trusts may charge a flat percentage of a school’s income to cover central functions (such as finance, audit, HR, or education improvement projects). In some cases, this is a recharge for actual costs rather than a flat percentage.

Reserves pooling

You may pool unspent funds from your academies into a single pot (or several pots) to enable trust-wide improvements, targeted interventions, or other trust priorities.

You must ensure that your academy trust has a reserves policy that sets out how the trust intends to use the funds for the benefit of all pupils.

Theme 3: central services

Academy trusts can operate central services that support all (or some) of the academies in their trust. When explaining which central services your academy trust operates, you should include information about:

• which services the trust provides centrally
• how these services are funded

Typical central services

Central services may include:

• financial services – includes a chief financial officer and small finance team preparing budgets and processing all financial transactions and payroll
• human resources – includes managing staff concerns and providing specialist advice
• procurement – includes preparing tenders and securing competitive contracts
• legal services
• other services as needs arise

Theme 4: expenditure by each academy

When providing details about how much money has been spent at each academy, you should show:

• how much funding each academy receives from DfE
• how much is spent on each academy
• if applicable, how much is charged for central services

The expenditure figures for each academy should match those in your audited annual accounts.