Our half-termly Trust Strategy meetings are now back on schedule following a brief hiatus. July 2023 was given over to 3 Ofsted inspections, and a change of membership due to a new Vice-Chair of Trustees meant the one scheduled for the start of the autumn term was cancelled. When Mary Foreman (Chair of Trustees), Sally Williams (Vice-chair), and Stuart Mansell (CEO) finally met in the second half of autumn, the whole meeting was confidential, focusing on plans for the recruitment of a new CEO. Consequently, our spring 1 meeting, including Jan Neish (Governance & Compliance), was as much a current status review as anything else.

The first part of the meeting covered the full recruitment pack for a new CEO and plans for communicating and implementing plans for the coming months. We are expecting to have a new CEO appointed by March. This was supported by a discussion about ensuring that OWN continues to build on recent successes during the recruitment period and that there should be no ‘slowing down’ in our plans for growth. In fact, the establishment of a working party looking specifically at growth has already been completed. An additional, external ‘Readiness for Growth’ review was also agreed and will take place between now and the end of March. This includes a visit from the Regional Director’s team from the DfE.

Further plans for self-evaluation by Trustees were proposed by Jan Neish, including a bi-annual skills review and evaluation via the Chartered Governance Institute resources before the meeting drew to a close in the early evening. It was a pleasure to review the current status of OWN Trust at this meeting as it really couldn’t be in a better place at this point in time, and all credit to the staff, governors, and Trustees for getting it there.