Academies Update Conference

Simon is the Director of Resources for Southend High School for Boys in Essex, the ISBL national lead on school finance and efficiency. As a qualified Accountant, a Project Manager and Lean Practitioner, he spent a number of years working in the charity sector and a lot of his career working on finance system-related projects, including a period working for one of the UK’s largest software consultancy firms.

Simon also worked in one of the largest FE colleges in the country so has knowledge of both charity and education accounting. Simon is well known across the sector having delivered numerous training sessions and presentations with the Education & Skills Funding Authority (ESFA), and, on behalf of ISBL. He is also a member of one of the ESFA’s Financial Assurance working groups and the ISBL Funding Special Interest Group. 

Louise is a Financial Frameworks Manager for the ESFA and leads on the development of the Academies Accounts Direction, its supporting documents, and the development of the academy trust good practice guides on financial management and governance. Prior to joining the ESFA , she worked as a school business manager in an academy trust and has also held a variety of roles in public sector finance.

Chris Whiting is the managing director of Academy Advisory and has previously held CFO positions for a number of academy trusts.

Academy Advisory is a specialist provider of internal audit and consultancy services to the academy sector with over 300 academies nationwide with services covering all aspects of academy trust operations, including areas such as: educational improvement, safeguarding, finance, HR, ICT, estates, and governance. Chris has worked closely with the DfE and the ESFA on a number of engagements including anti-fraud response and academy turnaround in addition to his work as an internal auditor.

Mark is a Partner in, and the founder of, the Education team at Browne Jacobson and has almost 30 years’ experience as an education lawyer. He is recommended as a Leader in his field in the industry directories ‘Chambers UK’ and ‘Legal 500’. ‘Chambers UK’ describes Mark "a true leader in the sector" and Legal 500 includes him in their 'Hall of Fame' highlighting law firm partners who are 'at the pinnacle of the profession'.

Mark also has over twenty years’ experience of serving in governance in the education sector and between 2011-2021 Mark was the Chair of the L.E.A.D Academy Trust, a now 27 school multi-academy trust. Mark has also served as a DfE designated National Leader of Governance.

Adrian is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries within the Hymans Robertson’s public sector team, advising Local Government Pension Schemes and employers across the UK. He is one of the actuarial leads in the public sector accounting team responsible for delivering over 4,000 annual IAS19 reports for local authorities and FRS102 disclosures for academies. Within his role Adrian speaks to stakeholders across the sector including employers, auditors and the NAO on methodology and ongoing audit issues.

David spent 10 years at Mercia where he lectured, performed quality review and consultation services, developed their academies specialist assignment manual and training resources and acted as Director of Assurance and Accounting Content between 2018 and 2020.

In September 2020 David became Audit Quality and Technical Director at Azets and an independent lecturer. David plays an active role with committees and working groups at ICAEW and ESFA and is a member of the ICAEW’s Technical and Practical Auditing Committee and the ESFA’s working group responsible for the development of the Academies Accounts Direction.