The Academy Trust Handbook 2026: What MAT Finance Teams Need to Change Before October

Every multi-academy trust finance team knows the drill by now. A new Academy Trust Handbook lands, and somewhere in the detail are a handful of changes that quietly reshape how the finance team has to operate. The Academy Trust Handbook 2026 comes into effect from 1 October 2026, and trusts are already working through what it means in practice. The timing matters, because it lands at a point when many trusts are already managing tighter reserves than they would like.

Reserves Are Already Under Pressure

A recent MAT Finance Sector Insight Report, covering 267 trusts with more than 3,000 schools, found that 37% of trusts expect to hold less than 5% of income in reserves by 2026/27, with primary-majority trusts particularly exposed. Core schools funding is increasing by £1.7 billion in 2026-27, taking total funding to £67 billion, a real increase of 2.6%. That sounds like relief, but for trusts already managing thin reserves and rising costs, it closes the gap rather than removing the pressure entirely.

What the Handbook Actually Changes

The detail of the 2026 Handbook covers areas trusts will recognise from previous years: related party transactions, procurement thresholds, and expectations around financial oversight at board level all see updates. None of these changes are dramatic on their own. Together, they raise the bar for what good financial governance looks like, at exactly the moment trusts have less room to get it wrong.

For finance teams already stretched thin, the practical challenge is not understanding the changes. It is proving compliance with them, consistently, across every school in the trust, without adding headcount to do it.

Why Manual Oversight Gets Harder as Trusts Grow

A single-academy trust can often manage related-party checks and procurement thresholds through careful manual review. A trust with a dozen or more schools cannot rely on the same approach without real risk of inconsistency between schools, and inconsistency is exactly what auditors and regulators notice first. The trusts handling this well are moving procurement and invoice approval into a single, consistent workflow across every school, so a purchase order in one academy follows the same checks and leaves the same audit trail as one in another.

Getting Ahead of 1 October

The Handbook takes effect from 1 October 2026, which gives trusts a defined window to review current processes against the new requirements, rather than discovering gaps during an audit after the fact. For most trusts, that review will surface the same underlying issue. The policies are usually fine on paper. It is the consistency of applying them across every school, every time, that needs the most attention.

References
Schools Week (2026) Academy Trust Handbook 2026: 10 Changes Schools Need to Know. Available at: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/academy-trust-handbook-2026-10-changes-schools-need-to-know/ (Accessed: 27 July 2026).
BERA (2026) Financial Forecasts in England’s Multi-Academy Trusts Could Have a Lasting Impact on Children’s Learning. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/financial-forecasts-in-englands-multi-academy-trusts-could-have-a-lasting-impact-on-childrens-learning (Accessed: 27 July 2026).