Education trading companies

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Education trading companies

There are many reasons why schools and academies may want to establish a company to support their activities. These will include supporting income generation, effective collaboration with other schools, supporting teaching school alliances or simply to ring fence risk. However, it is often a complex decision which is based on a number of competing factors. It is therefore important you take legal advice at an early stage.

If you decide a trading subsidiary is the most appropriate option, you will need to put in place robust arrangements which go beyond simply incorporating a ready-made company. It is important to have in place an agreement that not only sets out the basis of the provision of services between the school and its subsidiary, but also ensures the governing body of the school has appropriate control over the activities of its subsidiary.

Our expert team will provide you with straightforward, practical advice in putting the appropriate arrangements in place. We have extensive experience in advising a large number of clients on a wide range of issues involving trading companies.

What we do...

Extensive experience dealing with the issues which affect establishing a company - from assisting with the decision-making process, establishing the appropriate governance and commercial mechanisms to advising on the legal and practical issues, including employment, pensions, property, commercial and intellectual property
Working closely with accountants and tax advisers to ensure the model proposed is the most effective from a tax and financial perspective.

Advising on all manner of sizes and types of the companies - from establishing a small company to support after school activities to teaching school alliances to an 80 strong school partnership.
Working with the National College to establish a model for how companies can support collaborations, specifically around teaching school activities.

Recent experience

Acting for a group of academies who collaborated by using a trading company to address behaviour and attendance issues where the local authority were unable to continue providing services. We provided guidance on the governance structures and also advised on the impact of employment and pensions on the operation of the company. We also put in place stringent arrangements to ensure the academies complied with EFA requirements.
Acting for a group schools (which includes academies, maintained schools and private schools) in forming a company to support collaborative arrangements whereby the schools would jointly tender to sponsor four brand new schools to be built by the local authority through targeted need provision funding. The project involved putting in place robust governance arrangements necessary to support joint working.
Advising a teaching school alliance on establishing a trading company to support their teaching school activities. This involved advising on the most appropriate governance structure and on key aspects of use of a company, including the advice on impact on student loans, ensuring that appropriate membership and alliance arrangements were in place and also ensuring there were appropriate contractual protections in place between the teaching school company and the students.

What the directories say...

They are effective, efficient and user-friendly.

Chambers 2022

The team at Browne Jacobson work incredibly well together and provide a comprehensive service. A member of the team is always available to talk and the team has a range of individuals with strengths in particular areas which they make clear and understandable for those of us who may not be legally trained.

Legal 500 2021

The team provides a brilliant service and has a thorough knowledge of the sector.

Chambers 2021

The level of service we receive is impeccable. They are efficient in their response, professional in their service and the quality is outstanding.

Chambers 2020

I feel like there's some magic going on behind the scenes that makes everything fall into place. They have a tremendous scope of expertise.

Chambers 2019

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