What Is GAG Pooling And Is It Right For MATs?

How individual schools in multi-academy trusts (MATs) are funded presents leadership teams with a challenge. Do they allow individual schools to retain allocated funding taking a small percentage for running of the trust, called top-slicing, or do they pool funding centrally and allocate to individual schools, called GAG-pooling?

Increasingly, MATs are looking to pool General Annual Grant (GAG) funding, but there are some considerations MATs must first consider.

Given the extensive guidance offered to schools in the Academies Trust Handbook and the new Schedule of Musts, there is surprisingly little in the way of direction offered on GAG pooling. Two short paragraph – 5.30 and 5.31 – is all schools get.