Page 16 - 2019-20 Annual Report and Financial Statements

DIOCESE OF CHICHESTER ACADEMY TRUST GOVERNANCE STATEMENT (CONTINUED)
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2020
The Trust have appointed a Compliance Manager who ensures the Trust and constituent academies have in place and abide by the required policies. The Trust, through the Compliance Manager, has continued to identify further Trust-wide policies that it will draft for Board approval, alongside the review of the operational academy policies to ensure they are consistent and current.
In conjunction with the risk register, the policies provide a framework for financial and risk management. Risk registers within individual academies, that mirror the structure of the corporate register, have been rolled out and feed into the Trust's overall risk register.
Audit and Resources Committee
The Audit and Resource Committee is a sub-committee of the main board of trustees, and the trustees met four times during 2019-20. Its purpose is to:
• maintain an oversight of the academy trust's finance and governance;
• review risk management and internal control;
• review the value for money framework;
• consider multi-academy trust central staffing and other operational matters.
The trustees of the committee report its findings annually to the Board and the Accounting Officer as a critical element of the trust's annual reporting requirements.
The budgets are prepared on an annual basis by academies for approval by the Audit and Resources Committee. The Trust is minded to the requirements of the Academies Financial Handbook. Management accounts and cashflow forecasts are regularly produced with a narrative report on finance and operational issues for board meetings.
The Local Governing Bodies have delegated responsibilities on behalf of the Trust Board. They are responsible for the regular review of the financial and operating performance of the relevant academies and making recommendations to the Board as appropriate.
Mr N Morris served as an associate member of the Audit and Resource Committee from December 2019, attending 3 out of 3 possible meetings.
Full committee member attendance at meetings in the year was as follows:
Trustees
TheVenerableLTIrvine-Capel(ChairofTrustees)(Appointed13 September 2019)
Mr T J Manly (Chair of Audit & Resources) MrWIGPayne(Appointed21May2020)
Mr N Taunt
Mrs K A Sims (Resigned 26 February 2020)
Review of value for money
Meetings attended
2 4 1 3 1
Out of possible
As accounting officer the CEO has responsibility for ensuring that the academy trust delivers good value in the use of public resources. The accounting officer understands that value for money refers to the educational and wider societal outcomes achieved in return for the taxpayer resources received.
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