![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Stephen-Morales-movers-300px.jpg\")
\u201cYou need to create enough headroom to deal with any headwinds that may come in your direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surplus disappears<\/h3>\n
Latest accounts for Brooke Weston<\/a>, which runs 12 schools, show it ended 2024-25 with a \u00a33.4 million deficit, having sat on a small \u00a3720,000 surplus 12 months earlier.<\/p>\n They noted the trust\u2019s \u201cstrategy over recent years has been to utilise cash reserves to invest in resources\u201d for its academies.<\/p>\n It felt \u201csome time ago that holding high levels of reserves was inappropriate when we still had much school improvement to do\u201d.<\/p>\n This helped all its schools secure \u2018good\u2019 or better Ofsted judgments, accounts said, but also \u201cdepleted\u201d reserves. Its finances were \u201cfurther impacted when increased staff and utility costs were only partially covered\u201d by the government.<\/p>\n But Nigel Brunning, a former trust chief financial officer, stressed many trusts had \u201cachieved significant and rapid school improvement whilst maintaining a balanced budget, even in the most challenging situations\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cSchool improvement\u2019s got to be a priority, but that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re going to have to go into a massive deficit. You\u2019ve got to live within your means.\u201d<\/p>\n The Department for Education recommends trusts hold reserves of at least 5 per cent of total income. Twenty per cent above that level is considered too much.<\/p>\n Brooke Weston had set itself a target of maintaining reserves of between 3 and 5 per cent.<\/p>\n A report by the Kreston Group, a network of accountancy firms, found 26 per cent of trusts are sitting on reserves that represent less than 5 per cent of income, down from 35 per cent in 2023-24.<\/p>\n But Morales noted slipping below recommended levels risked trusts left in a \u201cprecarious position\u201d.<\/p>\n Brooke Weston hoped to \u201crealise significant cost savings\u201d last year, but some were \u201ctaking longer than expected\u201d, accounts continued.<\/p>\n Among other things, it \u201creduced budgets for non-educational areas not controlled directly by schools\u201d. Ahead of this academic year, its academies \u201crevisited their curriculum models\u201d.<\/p>\n A voluntary redundancy and staff redeployment exercise led to almost \u00a31.3 million in \u201cexceptional\u201d costs. In all, the trust agreed 50 redundancy applications.<\/p>\n Andrew Campbell, its chief executive, said its \u201cprompt action on cost\u201d had secured \u201clong-term viability for our schools and, importantly, means that our new chief executive will inherit a strong and sustainable outlook when they start in the new school year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are ahead of schedule to return to a positive reserves position and then to achieve our target of 3 to 5 per cent as per our reserves policy.\u201d<\/p>\n Brooke Weston\u2019s accounts also show Tim Coulson, who now leads the DfE\u2019s regions group, resigned as a trustee last summer.<\/p>\n It is the latest high-profile case of a trust racking up multi-million-pound losses.<\/p>\n The St Ralph Sherwin Catholic MAT in Derbyshire ended last August \u00a39.2 million in the red<\/a>. The year before, government data suggested it had the largest deficit in the country (\u00a35.9 million)<\/a>.<\/p>\nDfE recommendation<\/h3>\n
Catholic MAT\u2019s \u00a39m deficit<\/h3>\n
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