Legal requirements

Certain legal requirements need to be met for a conversions academy order (AO) to go ahead. These are:

  1. The school has provided a governing body resolution.
  2. The governing body has consulted the relevant stakeholders.
  3. (If the school is linked to a diocese) the diocese consents to the proposed conversion.
  4. (If the school is supported by a foundation) the foundation consents to the proposed conversion.

If these are not met, DfE’s Judicial Review team can revert the AO because the correct process was not followed.

# Meeting the requirements

Schools need to prove that the proposed academy conversion meets legal requirements when applying to become an academy. They do this by uploading evidence such as consent letters.

DfE delivery officers (DOs) ensure that schools have given the necessary information before a decision is made.

To make this easy for DOs, we added a legal requirements section to the conversion project task list.

A digital task list. A link called legal requirements is highlighted.

We used the summary list component so that the section is consistent with other task list pages. DOs use radio buttons to confirm if the school has given the necessary information.

A summary list called Confirm legal requirements. It has four rows: governing body resolution, consultation, diocesan consent and foundation consent.

Has the school provided a governing body resolution? Yes, no, not applicable.

We included a not applicable option because not all schools link to a diocese or are part of a foundation. We included not applicable in the other questions for consistency.

# Next steps

  1. Test the legal requirements design with DOs

  2. Learn what happens currently when the DO selects no to the following options.

  • Governing body resolution
  • Consultation