CST Governance and Trustees Conference 2025

In Next-gen governance, we made the case for a new version of trust governance that goes beyond compliance and brings to life our bespoke Academy Trust Governance Code, creating sustainable and effective governance fit for the next stage of the trust sector.

Now we have the opportunity to work collectively to define our version of next-gen governance. Some themes we will explore at our conference:

• Changing our mindset to stewardship – What does this mean and how does it change decision making?
• Prevention, not fire-fighting – Can we use a relational approach to prevent resource-intensive adversarial processes in governance (e.g. complaints)?
• Using technology and AI – Can we use these to reduce workload, improve communication and increase connectivity and engagement? What are the opportunities and what risks? How can trustees incorporate AI into their trust’s strategic planning?
• New ways to think about ‘board effectiveness’ – Can we go beyond traditional skills audits and find new ways to ensure diversity of thought and perspective?
• Attracting the next generations – How do we widen the pool of volunteers in our sector? Does it require us to address some or all of the points above?

This year’s conference also recognises the expertise held by members of our Governance and trustees professional community and seeks to create more opportunities across the day for participants to engage with each other in open panel discussions and two separate strands of workshops – one for trustees and one for governance professionals.