New leader appointed to debt-stricken Nottingham Diocese academy trust

The Bishop of Nottingham has appointed Lisa Walton the new chief executive of the St Ralph Sherwin Mult-Academy Trust, which has a £9.5 million debt, the largest deficit of any of the 2,200 academy trusts in England.

Kevin Gritton stepped down as chief executive of the Trust on Friday, 5 June “with immediate effect”  said the chair of the trust, Sarah Noon in a letter to school governors. More than 1,200 parents had signed a petition calling for Gritton’s removal alongside that of Noon and other board members appointed by Bishop Patrick McKinney of Nottingham. 

He and the Department for Education have approved Walton’s appointment until August 2027. For the past four years, Walton, a practising Catholic has been the deputy head of the East Midlands Trust.

Last week, striking teachers delivered an open letter to the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, asking for Government intervention in the dispute.

 They urged Phillipson to instruct the trust to halt and withdraw existing restructure proposals and called for the preservation of essential pastoral and chaplaincy roles. The trust has reduced the number of school chaplains from 15 to three, serving nearly 8,000 children. More than 40 jobs are due to be cut in a bid to balance the Trust’s deficit this year.

Sarah Aldred, a parent of a child at a Trust school told The Tablet parents and former and existing pupils had emailed Walton because they felt she needed “to make an informed decision by looking at the situation herself. Pausing redundancies will keep the schools performing the best they can whilst other options are examined.”

She added that parents would like the remaining members of the Trust board, including the chair, Sarah Noon, the diocesan director of education, Peter Giorgio and its human resources manager, Lucy Quach to resign: “We want Lisa to be a fresh start and are unhappy that the remaining board members are the ones that helped put the schools in this situation and have previously ignored many concerns from parents.”

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