Board of Trustees

The Academy’s Board of Trustees have overall responsibility for the Academy and includes representation from parents, staff and the local authority. The Chair of the Board of Trustees is the authorised representative of the Sponsor, Reed Foundation. Three Trustees are also Members and have additional responsibilities such as the power to appoint trustees and remove these trustees or amend the articles.

Board of Trustees Membership 2023-24

Current Trustees
Chair of Board of Trustees - Louise Prince BA (Hons) BSc (Hons) Louise can be contacted at enquiries@alecreedacademy.co.uk or by post to: Alec Reed Academy, Bengarth Road, Northolt, Middlesex, UB5 5LQ
Vice Chair of Board of Trustees - Jane Wotherspoon
Sponsor Trustee - Phil Mead MREC
Parent Trustee - Gagandeep Sethi
Ex-Officio Trustee - Phil Cosby BSc (Hons), MA, PGCEL, NPQH
Trustee -  Lucie Hernandez BA (Hons) QTS
Local Authority Trustee -  Dee Martin BA (Hons)
Trustee - Christopher Gliddon BA LLB
Trustee -  Dee Morrison BA (Hons)
Trustee - Efe Airefetalor
Trustee - Rohan Desai
Staff Trustee - Trudy Puddle
Trustee - Sara Hasan MBA, MSc
Parent Trustee - Pratik Shah
Current Members
Chair of Members - Baba Abu BSc (Hons) Econ MBA
Member - Heather Flint BSocSc MA
Member - Mike Phillips BSc (Hons) Eng
Member - James Reed MA MBA FCIPD

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP 2023 - 24

Board of Trustees & MEMBERS Attendance 2023-24

Members	Date Appointed	Date Resigned	AGM Meeting attended in 2023/24 out of possible 1
Member - Heather Flint BSocSc MA	14/05/08		1
Member - Baba Abu BSc (Hons) Econ MBA	01/09/14		1
Member - Mike Phillips BSc (Hons) Eng.	01/10/14		1
Member - James Reed MA MBA FCIPD	07/12/22		0

In appointing Trustees, the Board of Trustees look to ensure there is an appropriate mix of skills background and experience. See our Trustees' biographies below.

Board of trustees biographies

Dee Morrison - member of education committee and member of hr committee

Sara Hasan 

Gagandeep Sethi 

register of interests

All Trustees are required to disclose any relevant business and pecuniary interests including governance roles in other educational institutions and those of related parties, as these might possibly conflict with the Academy’s business and activities. All interests declared are disclosed in a register and published on our website at the end of this page.

Role of Board of Trustees

The Board normally meets four times a year to set the strategic direction and policies of the Academy and carry out key functions such as:

Organisational Structure

Whilst the Board cannot delegate overall responsibility for the Academy’s funds, it is able to delegate aspects and these are outlined in the Scheme of Delegation. The Scheme of Delegation sets out those powers and duties which are reserved for the Board and those delegated to its committees and to officers: the Chief Executive and Principal and Director of Finance and Resources.

In order to take a more detailed look at areas of its functions, the Board has formed committees to advise it on its decision making. The committees cover the following areas: Education, Finance & Resources, Audit, Human Resources and Discipline. The committees for each area meet between 2 and 5 times a year and their minutes are subsequently approved by the Board. All Trustees are members of the Discipline Committee. The terms of reference for each committee are included in the Scheme of Delegation, which can be found at the end of this page.

membership of committees and attendance in 2023/24

 

The Clerk to the Board of Trustees is Ms Sandra Scott, and she can be contacted via email at Clerk@alecreedacademy.co.uk. Any trustee can be contacted through the Clerk.

Responsibility for systems of control

Trustees acknowledge their overall responsibility for ensuring that the Academy has an effective and appropriate system of control, financial and otherwise to ensure regularity, compliance and propriety of items. The Governing Body has delegated the day-to-day responsibility to the Principal, as Accounting Officer, for ensuring good financial management and meeting the requirements and responsibilities assigned to it in the Funding Agreement  between the Academy and the Secretary of State for Education, dated 17 June 2003, and as set out in the Academies Financial Handbook. The Accounting Officer is responsible for reporting to the Board of Trustees any material weaknesses or breakdowns in internal control.

Arrangements in place to ensure robust financial controls are described in the Governance Statement which is published in the Academy’s Financial Statements. The most recent version is for 2017/18. The other key governance document is the Academy’s Memorandum and Articles of Association. All these documents follow below.

Sponsor

Alec Reed, Founding Sponsor of Alec Reed Academy, was born in Hounslow, Middlesex, the son of a civil servant. He attended Drayton Manor Grammar School leaving to become a trainee accountant. In 1960, with £75 in his pocket, the 26-year-old opened his first employment agency in Hounslow.

He founded the company, REED, in 1960 and in the early 1960s, REED pioneered specialist recruitment services. It subsequently expanded to offer the provision of training, HR outsourcing and Welfare to Work services. The very popular online web site www.reed.co.uk was established in 1995. The company has continued to expand to include www.reedinpartnership.co.uk, www.reedlearning.com, and the highly successful Reed Business School www.reedbusinessschool.co.uk.

Today, REED has a global presence, in Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. It has 425 business units in 180 locations worldwide, employs over 3,000 people delivering a service across more than 30 specialisms www.reedglobal.com.

Alec Reed is a committed philanthropist and has founded various charitable organisations including Womankind Worldwide, Ethiopiaid, Reed Restart at Holloway Prison, Women at Risk. As Founding Sponsor of the Academy which opened in 2003 under the name of West London Academy as one of the first twelve or ‘original’ Academies, he has remained committed to the area of London where he grew up. The Academy changed its name to Alec Reed Academy in September 2012 in honour of its Founding Sponsor.

In 1985, he established The Reed Foundation, a charitable foundation that has since provided the seed funding for a number of charities, including Womankind Worldwide, Women at Risk and Ethiopiaid. In 2007, he launched ‘The Big Give’, www.thebiggive.org.uk a project designed to encourage potential wealthy philanthropists looking to make donations between £100,000 and £10m. In The Big Give 2011 Christmas Challenge, over £12.5 million was raised for 420 charities. The site is now home to £1.3bn worth of projects in need of funding.

In 1994 Alec Reed was invested as a Commander of the order of the British Empire for his charitable services. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). He is also a Fellow of the Beacon Charitable Trust, an Honorary Fellow of Royal Holloway, University of London and an Honorary Doctor of The Open University. Alec Reed was Professor of Enterprise and Innovation at Royal Holloway until 2001 and is a visiting Professor to London Guildhall University, which merged with the University of North London to become London Metropolitan University in 2002, from where he also has an Honorary Doctorate. He is also Honorary Professor of Warwick University.

In the 2011 New Year Honours, Sir Alec Reed was awarded a knighthood for services to business and charity.

Sir Alec Reed with some of our 2015 GCSE Top 20 pupils