United Learning has announced that its schools are to become members and shareholders in the Group from this month. At the Group’s Leadership Conference this month, each Local Governing Body Chair will be given a share certificate on behalf of their school, representing legal membership of the Group. Because the Group’s historic overarching charitable Foundation (now called ‘United Learning’) is a company limited by shares, each school will become a formal shareholder in this ‘parent company’.
The 142nd Annual General Meeting of United Learning will take place at the Group’s Leadership Conference and formally receive the Annual Report and Accounts. Before this year, the AGM had been a meeting of Board members, but from now each school will have a vote at the AGM, through its local governing body Chair. The AGM is the formal mechanism through which the Board reports on the performance of the Group and also provides an opportunity to consider, debate and vote on resolutions brought forward by members.
Each year for the last decade, the Chief Executive, Chair and Board have held a formal meeting with all local governing body Chairs at the wider Leadership Conference to review the year’s performance. This meeting will now become the AGM, adding a layer of legal formality and guaranteeing for the future that the Group’s current ethos of building local views into all strategic decision-making will continue.
Commenting, Chief Executive of United Learning, Sir Jon Coles said:
“It is fundamental to our approach that each school in United Learning retains its own identity and ethos – that it remains a local school responding to the needs of the local community. As part of this, it is vital that each school has a meaningful voice in Group-wide decisions. Making each school a formal shareholder ensures that this will remain the case in the future and strengthens the voice of local governance in national decision-making.
“This development is not intended to change the way we work – but rather to embed it. I am sometimes asked by schools joining us ‘how do we know that the Group will always work in this way – even when there is a change in the Board and the Executive?’ This is our answer: by making every school a shareholder in the Group, we guarantee that they can always make their voice heard.
“As a growing, national Group, we are determined to retain a relationship-based, listening, responsive ethos and the things that have made us successful so far – irrespective of political, economic or other changes. Making sure that we will always have to account for ourselves as a Board and Executive, act transparently and listen to local voices will help to make sure this is always the case.”