From schools to MATs: is your board ready? Part one

3. Outdated skills audits

86% of schools in MATs are rated Ofsted ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’. As MATs grow, the importance of maintaining high-performance levels also grows. To do this, boards need a continual stream of fresh ideas and strategic nous across a range of skill sets on their board. One common theme I find when speaking with schools and MATs about their board is that they are missing ‘XXX professionals’ (often finance, education, or audit).

Yet how boards arrive at this conclusion is often the product of a skills audit that is not fully reflective of the strategic intention or current positionality of the trust. As a trust develops, so does its strategy, and as its strategy develops, so does the requirement for different skill sets on the board. At Peridot, we positively challenge the method by which Chairs and governance professionals have come about their skills audit process and often find that their skills audit process is not updated on a regular basis. Skills audits need to be relevant to the present and planned context of the trust and help boards identify where their board’s strengths lie, and where their gaps in knowledge might be. Ultimately, we want trust boards to consider ‘who do we need to enable us to get to where we’re going?’ and ‘what knowledge and expertise can our executive benefit from?’.

Without broad and diverse knowledge and experience, MATs risk ‘mission drift’ as their attention is drawn to growth and the challenge (or threat) of acquisition or merger. Similarly, boards can lack purpose and punctuality in their meetings without the right skills on the board at the right stage of a trust’s strategic journey. It is vital, therefore, that boards continue to evaluate their existing skillsets against their strategy and direction of travel to continue to find the right people for their board.

I hope this has invoked discussion for your boards and either confirmed that your board practice is up-to-date or will encourage re-evaluation. Now we have established the challenges that boards face and understand what can be done through recruitment, tune in next week when we will begin to look at how we get there.