Turning Vision into Reality: Target Operating Models for Multi-Academy Trusts

A Target Operating Model (TOM) is the essential blueprint that translates an organisation's strategic vision into an executable reality. It provides a high-level representation of how people, processes, and technology will be organised and integrated to deliver value and achieve strategic goals effectively and efficiently. For a Multi-Academy Trust, the TOM is the practical embodiment of its core educational and organisational philosophy. It answers the fundamental question: how will the trust function as a single entity to improve the life chances of its pupils?

The defining strategic choice for any MAT leader is where to position their trust on a spectrum of control, ranging from a model that preserves the maximum autonomy for individual schools to one that drives consistency and standardisation through central direction. This choice is not merely administrative; it has profound implications for a trust's culture, its capacity for improvement, and its overall performance.

This article will critically evaluate the impact of different MAT operating models on key performance indicators, including pupil attainment, staff wellbeing, and financial health. It will argue that available data reveals no single 'best' model for all contexts. The effectiveness of any TOM is contingent on its alignment with a trust's specific vision, scale, geography, and capacity. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, this analysis will demonstrate that the prevailing trend towards greater centralisation involves significant and often difficult trade-offs between the competing goals of financial efficiency, educational outcomes, and staff welfare.

A Spectrum of Control: Centralised, Decentralised, and Hybrid Models

MAT operating models exist along a continuum of centralisation. While every trust is unique, three broad archetypes can be identified, each with a distinct philosophy and structure.

Operating Model	Core Philosophy	Decision-Making Locus	Key Centralised Functions	Reported Advantages	Reported Challenges/Risk
Centralised	Consistency, standardisation, and efficiency drive school improvement. The trust operates as a single, unified organisation.	Primarily with the central executive team and trust board.	Finance (GAG pooling), HR, IT, procurement, core curriculum, assessment frameworks, behaviour policies.	Economies of scale, financial resilience, rapid deployment of improvement strategies, quality assurance, equity of resource allocation.	Loss of school autonomy and identity, reduced local responsiveness, risk of 'one-size-fits-all' approach, higher teacher workload, potential for stifling innovation.
Decentralised	School improvement is best led at the local level. The trust empowers and holds autonomous school leaders to account.	Primarily with the Headteacher and Local Governing Body of each school.	Statutory compliance, financial oversight, central procurement of some services (optional).	Respect for local context and community needs, fosters leadership autonomy and innovation, potentially higher staff morale.	Inefficiencies, duplication of effort, difficulty in sharing best practice systematically, risk of performance variation, less capacity to support struggling schools.
Hybrid / Hub-and-Spoke	A balance between central strategic direction and local operational freedom. Collaboration is key.	Shared between the central 'hub' and regional/local 'spokes'.	Strategic direction, specialist expertise (e.g., SEND, finance), quality assurance framework, core non-negotiables.	Balances scale with localism, facilitates regional collaboration, can be more adaptable to growth and geographical spread.	Complexity in communication and reporting lines, potential for tension between the hub and spokes, requires strong regional leadership.

The centralised model treats the MAT as a single, cohesive organisation. Key decisions regarding finance, HR, curriculum, and assessment are made by the central team and implemented consistently across all schools. This approach is often favoured by trusts focused on rapid turnaround of underperforming schools, as it allows for the swift implementation of proven systems and processes. There is a clear trend towards greater centralisation across the sector, with a 2024 report finding that 61% of MATs now describe themselves as fully centralised, up from 55% the previous year.

The decentralised model, in contrast, operates on a principle of 'earned autonomy'. Individual schools retain significant control over their day-to-day operations, curriculum, and budget management. The central trust's role is primarily one of strategic oversight, providing support and challenge while holding school leaders accountable for outcomes. This model is often preferred by trusts formed from groups of already successful schools that wish to preserve their unique identities and local leadership.

Hybrid models, such as the 'hub-and-spoke' approach, attempt to combine the benefits of both. A central 'hub' provides strategic direction, core services, and specialist expertise, while geographically-defined clusters or 'spokes' of schools collaborate on a local level and retain a degree of operational autonomy. This model is particularly suited to large or geographically dispersed trusts, allowing them to maintain a local presence and responsiveness while still leveraging the benefits of scale.

The Centralisation Debate: Efficiency and Standardisation vs. Autonomy and Localism

The choice of operating model is at the heart of the strategic debate within the MAT sector. Proponents of centralisation point to several key advantages. The most prominent is financial efficiency. By centralising back-office functions like finance, HR, and procurement, trusts can achieve significant economies of scale, negotiate better contracts, and reduce duplication of effort, thereby releasing more funding for teaching and learning. Case studies, such as the Eden Academy's centralisation of therapy services, provide concrete evidence of how this can lead to both cost savings and improved service delivery. Furthermore, centralisation enables a trust to standardise its educational offer, ensuring a consistent and high-quality curriculum and pedagogical approach across all its schools, which is a powerful lever for school improvement. It also facilitates greater equity, as models like GAG pooling allow resources to be strategically directed to schools with the greatest need.

However, this drive for central control is met with significant concerns. For schools considering joining a MAT, the primary fear is the loss of their unique identity and the autonomy to serve their specific local community. This is not just a matter of sentiment; centralisation fundamentally alters power dynamics, diminishing the role and agency of local governors and school leaders. Critics argue that this can lead to a 'democratic deficit', where schools become less accountable to their local stakeholders. There is also a risk that excessive standardisation can stifle innovation and de-professionalise teachers by removing their capacity for autonomous decision-making in the classroom.

Evaluating Effectiveness: The Impact of Target Operating Models on Performance, People, and Pounds

Evaluation of operating models reveals no single superior approach but a series of trade-offs across key domains:

Domain	Key Findings
Pupil Attainment (Overall)	Evidence is mixed: no clear advantage for MATs over LAs or for centralised over decentralised models. Performance variation within MATs is greater than between MATs and LAs.
Pupil Attainment (Disadvantaged)	Highly variable. Some large, centralised MATs deliver strong outcomes, but two-thirds of academy chains underperform. Larger MATs admit more disadvantaged pupils and often achieve better results for them.
Teacher Retention & Workload	Larger, centralised MATs have the lowest retention and highest workloads. Staff report poorer work-life balance than in LA schools.
Financial Efficiency	Centralised trusts show stronger financial health, with higher reserves per pupil. GAG pooling and shared functions provide greater resilience.

This creates an operating model trilemma: trusts can optimise for financial efficiency (centralisation) or for staff wellbeing/autonomy (decentralisation), but rarely both. Pupil attainment sits uneasily between these pressures, making outcomes highly context-dependent.

Conclusion and Recommendations: Towards an Effective and Sustainable MAT Model

A birds-eye view of current data indicates that there is no 'one-size-fits-all' Target Operating Model for Multi-Academy Trusts. The pursuit of a single, mandated model — such as promoting large, centralised trusts based on financial metrics alone — is not supported by the research on pupil attainment or staff wellbeing. The effectiveness of a MAT is determined not by its structure per se, but by the alignment of that structure with its specific context, vision, and capacity.

This analysis leads to a series of recommendations for trust leaders:

1. Be explicit about strategic trade-offs: Trust boards and executive leaders should be transparent about the trade-offs inherent in their chosen TOM. They must consciously balance the drive for efficiency with the need to create a sustainable and professionally fulfilling environment for staff.

2. Prioritise communication and local engagement: As trusts centralise functions, they must invest heavily in robust communication channels and mechanisms for meaningful local stakeholder engagement. This is critical to mitigate the risks of the 'democratic deficit' and to ensure that schools remain connected and responsive to the communities they serve.

3. Design for daptability: A TOM should not be a static monument but an adaptive map. Trusts must build in mechanisms for continuous review and evolution, allowing their operating model to change in response to growth, changing external conditions, and feedback from their schools.

Ultimately, the test of any MAT's capacity and operating model lies not in its organisational chart or its balance sheet, but in its ability to create and sustain school environments where staff are empowered, and every child is given the foundation they need to thrive.