An academy trust has dispensed with senior job titles like CEO to “avoid top-down control” – with all bosses all renamed as “school and college trust leaders”.
Members of Dixons Academies Trust’s executive team will all be given the title, after the MAT decided the original names of their roles did not “fit within our sector”.
Last year, the trust had 10 members of staff at executive director level. There will be more than 20 school and college trust leaders in all, with a number of principals handed wider roles.
It comes after the 17-school chain recently jettisoned appraisals and launched a nine-day fortnight for teachers.
Luke Sparkes, who leads the trust but will no longer be called its CEO, told Schools Week the titles change was made to “flatten the hierarchy further”.
“I have thought for a long time that the word ‘executive’ doesn’t fit within our sector – it can be alienating for families, and what does it really mean?”
He added that members of what was previously called the trust’s executive team – which also included directors of estates and regions – agreed.
However Michael Pain, who founded Forum Strategy, a chief executive membership group, argued that a “big advantage” of the title CEO is “it can help open doors to other agencies, regional and national organisations, and businesses”. This, he said, “can add social and professional capital” to schools.
‘Expertise is most important’
Pain also noted that charities, NHS trusts and social enterprises use the term CEO “for good reason – not least for clear governance. We’ll struggle to attract CEO talent in from other sectors [and] vice versa, if [the] title’s considered above or beneath us.”
The academy trust handbook states boards “must appoint, in writing, a senior executive leader” as well as an accounting officer.
The document also says a chief financial officer has to be chosen. They are given “responsibility for the trust’s detailed financial procedures”.
Dixons will continue to name Sparkes as its accounting officer in official documents and have a finance director in place for these compliance purposes. But outside of that the senior bosses will all be called school and college trust leaders.
“We want to avoid top-down control,” Sparkes continued. “Like so many in the sector, we believe that expertise is most important, which means titles are less so.
“We know this is symbolic … But we think it is also an important marker, and it shows a commitment from our leadership to … making the right decision for the right reasons in service to our communities.”
The trust will consider whether to go further in future by moving away from job titles in other parts of the organisation.
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