Can MAT take our School Fund?

[ScoobyGangMember]

MAT is making moves to get their greedy hands on our school fund. Can they do this? Pretty sure this wasn't made clear when we signed up.

They probably can. Check your Scheme of Delegation - what does that say about finances?

What is your School Fund? Is it money the school has saved (so basically your surpluses over the past few years)?

School fund is money from school trips, used to pay for the next trip, donations etc, definitely not budget surplus. Will see if I can get a look at the Scheme.

I am afraid that the answer is yes, once you become part of the MAT, then all the school's finances come the responsibility of the Trust Board, unless finance issues have been delegated to the individual school (very unlikely).

Bottom line is that if there was a significant amount of extra cash in the school fund that the governing body of the school should have recognised this and done something about it before they signed up for the MAT - its called due diligence! If however it is in the school fund because of parents paying for school trips etc that have not yet happened, then under those circumstances the MAT should not be touching that funding, it is spoken for.

Dont get me started on the due diligence . What about donations made to our school? Those donors would not be at all happy to think they might go to the MAT.

Tbh once you join a MAT I think the managers can mostly do as they wish. Wouldn’t trust one as far as I can throw one.

Could you set up the PTA as a Charity? (very quickly)

This isn’t PTA money though

School fund is money from school trips, used to pay for the next trip, donations etc

Errmmm those monies should really be in separate accounts.

Monies donated to the school are different to monies from parents that are intend for specific trips. The latter pot should never be in surplus overall as you can't make a profit from trips, so it's much easier to keep this separate from anything else (and would make it much easier now to say oi, hands off).

But yes, unless monies were ring fenced in some way when the MAT was created/you joined, then the MAT can take it.