Introduction
About the ESFA
The Education and Skills Funding Agency is accountable for funding education and
skills for children, young people, and adults. In 2021-22, ESFA successfully distributed
£65 billion of funding to education and skills providers. This included new funding
streams to help mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to a total
of £1.145billion of educational recovery funding, helping learners catch up on lost
learning.
The agency was reviewed as part of the Public Bodies programme in 2021/2022 and
has undergone changes to its remit and size as a result. The Review Summary Report
and the Department’s Response to the Recommendations can be viewed
here.
Following the review, the agency is more tightly focused on funding delivery, with key
aims to ensure that it remains effective, efficient, accountable, and aligned to DfE and
wider government priorities. ESFA achieves its purpose through:
• Delivering accurate, timely and efficient funding to education providers
• Ensuring public funds are properly spent to protect taxpayers’ money and
ensure value for money
• Utilising financial insight and expertise to advise, detect and prevent misuse of
funds
• Building the financial capabilities across the education sector by providing
practical informative guidance and support
• Working closely with the Regions group in DfE to operate proportionate
regulation and oversight of the sector
ESFA’s strategic outcomes are currently:
• Certainty – Those who ESFA fund have certainty in their funding, enabling them
to plan effectively
• Support – Those who ESFA fund can access high quality support and guidance,
protecting against financial difficulty
• Assurance – Taxpayers money is used for its intended purpose
See more detail on this in Annex 1 of the Candidate pack
Further Information
More detail on the ESFA can be found on
GOV.UKIntroduction from the Secretary of State
Welcome From Rt. Hon. Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education
Education opens doors and shapes the lives of children, young people, and adults. It is an integral part of the levelling up agenda – ensuring that every child, young person, and adult can realise their full potential. This is our core objective as the Department for Education (DfE). As an Executive Agency of DfE, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) shares and supports this objective through its successful delivery and assurance of funding for learners of all ages across England.
To support this, we are seeking to appoint a high calibre Chair for ESFA’s Audit & Risk Committee (ARC) and Non-Executive Director for ESFA’s Management Board (MB). The Chair and Non-Executive Director will be central to supporting executive decision making and providing strong strategic aims and standards. We are seeking applicants with significant experience and expertise to bring to ESFA’s ARC and Board discussions, and those who will be committed to driving forward the work of the organisation.
Thank you for your interest and for taking the time to read this candidate pack. If you have the skills and experience described below, I hope that you will apply. My department is focused on equality of opportunity, and I am committed to ensuring that Board appointments better represent the views of the communities which they serve. I therefore particularly encourage applications from women, people with disabilities and neurodivergence, LGBT+ candidates and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Introduction from the Chair
Welcome
From David Withey, Chief Executive Officer for the
Education and Skills Funding Agency
The ESFA is one of the largest funding operations across Government.
We are responsible for delivering £67bn of funding to more than 24,700
providers across the education and skills sectors. We are accountable
for £1 in every £10 spent by the UK Government and we hope to
ensure that every pound spent on education and skills has the greatest
possible impact on ensuring that all learners can reach their potential.
We do this by providing:
• certainty about funding, enabling providers to plan effectively
• support to those we fund to access high quality support and
guidance, protecting against financial difficulty
• assurance that taxpayer’s money is used for its intended purpose.
You will be joining the agency at a crucial time. Following an Arm’s Length
Body review in 2021 the agency has a clearer focus on delivery. We have
just launched our new strategic purpose and are looking to play a stronger
role in building partnerships with the sector to support effective financial
management, alongside our crucial regulatory-type functions.
Working closely with my leadership team and other NEDs, you will provide
advice, support and challenge to the agency. I am proud of the work that
we do and really delighted to lead an agency that plays such a critical role
in ensuring good outcomes for children and learners.
I look forward to working closely with the successful candidate, receiving
robust support and challenge to help achieve the agency’s vision.
Role description
ESFA wishes to recruit an individual who will Chair its Audit and Risk Committee and
sit on ESFA's Management Board as a Non-Executive Director. The role of the ARC
Chair is key to achieving committee effectiveness. As such, the successful candidate
is expected to participate fully in ARC’s business, in particular by undertaking the
following responsibilities: - Providing leadership to ESFA’s ARC ensuring the effective performance of the
Committee, in accordance with its Terms of Reference. This includes:
- ensuring all Committee members have an appropriate programme of
engagement with the organisation and its activities to help them
understand the organisation, its objectives, business needs and
priorities
- Establishing a mechanism enabling key stakeholders to consider the
group’s overall risk and assurance needs
- Encouraging good, open relationships between the Audit and Risk
Committee, Accounting Officer, department’s finance team and internal
and external auditors
- Ensuring that there is an appropriate process between meetings for
action points arising from Committee business to be appropriately
pursued
- Ensuring that members who have missed a meeting are appropriately
briefed on the business conducted in their absence
- Ensuring that there is a periodic review of the overall effectiveness of the
Committee and of its terms of reference
- Ensuring that Committee members are provided with appropriate
appraisal of their performance and that training needs are identified and
addressed
- Actively engaging in the appointment of new committee members
- Providing support and advice to ESFA’s CEO in their role of Accounting Officer
- Considering GIAA’s internal audit strategy and plans for the agency, and
reviewing their annual reports and assurance on corporate governance, risk
management and internal control
- Considering plans, reports, management letters and any other matters, from
the National Audit Office (NAO)
- Considering reports on business areas from senior ESFA officials to provide
the Committee with assurance on the management of major risks to the ESFA
- Reviewing the ESFA Resource Accounts and advising the Accounting Officer
on the appropriateness of the draft governance statement, prior to submission
to the NAO
- Promoting sound corporate governance within the ESFA
• Attending and participating fully in the business of DfE ARC, and providing a
strategic link into and/from ESFA’s ARC
As a member of ESFA’s Management Board, the successful candidate is expected to
undertake the following responsibilities:
- Supporting the Chair, ESFA CEO, and Executive Team in establishing and
taking forward the strategic objectives of the agency
- Supporting the Chair in seeking assurance of effective risk management,
particularly relating to strategic risks
- Providing effective scrutiny and challenge to ensure that activity undertaken by
the ESFA support wider strategic policies and that its affairs are conducted with
probity
- Monitoring the budget spend of the organisation, ensuring that it delivers
services in line with the targets agreed with the Board
The successful candidate will be assigned a specific area of responsibility linked to the
ESFA’s core business areas, to provide scrutiny and effective challenge.
The successful candidate will agree to comply with the Code of Practice for Board
Members, and the Cabinet Office Code of Conduct for Board Members of Public
Bodies
Organisation description
About the ESFA Audit and Risk Committee
(ARC) and ESFA Management Board (MB)
ESFA’s ARC
ESFA’s ARC is a sub-committee of the ESFA Management Board, established to
support them in their responsibilities for issues of risk, control and governance. ARC
does this by reviewing the comprehensiveness of assurances in meeting the board
and Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO) needs and reviewing the reliability and integrity
of these assurances.
ESFA’s ARC advises the Board and CEO on:
• The strategic processes for risk, control, and governance, including controls for
securing efficiency and effectiveness within providers funded by ESFA
• ESFA’s annual governance statement, including advice on the reliability,
integrity and scope of assurances used to inform the statement and any
significant control issues which should be disclosed
• ESFA’s annual report and accounts, including the process for review of the
accounts prior to submission for audit, levels of error identified and
management’s letter of representation to the external auditors
• The planned activity and results of both internal and external audit, including:
o the scope and objectives of the work of the Government Internal Audit
Agency (GIAA)
o the GIAA’s annual assurance statement, the annual report on risk
analysis activities and any control issues identified in the National Audit
Office (NAO) reports
o the adequacy of management responses to issues identified by the
GIAA, NAO, and other assurance activities
o relevant performance measures and indicators for the GIAA; and the
monitoring of the work of the function through these measures and
indicators
• Assurances relating to the management of risk and corporate governance
requirements for the organisation
• Anti-fraud policies, whistle-blowing processes, and arrangements for special
investigations • Any issue requiring escalation to the Department for Education’s Audit and Risk
Committee
Board composition
ESFA’s Management Board
ESFA’s Management Board provides strategic direction, support, and guidance to
ensure the delivery of ESFA’s Business Plan objectives, organisational effectiveness,
and alignment with the DfE’s mission, strategy, and purpose.
The Board advises the CEO on effective arrangements to provide assurance on risk
management, governance, and internal control. It challenges and advises on the
overall performance of ESFA and supports the CEO in the discharge of obligations set
out in ‘Managing Public Money’ for the proper conduct of business and maintenance
of ethical standards.
It is responsible for:
• Establishing and taking forward the strategic aims and objectives of the ESFA
consistent with its overall strategic direction and within the policy and resources
framework determined by the Secretary of State
• Ensuring that it receives and reviews regular financial information concerning
the management of the ESFA; is informed in a timely manner about any
concerns about the activities of the ESFA; and provides positive assurance to
the department that appropriate action has been taken on such concerns
• Demonstrating high standards of corporate governance at all times, including
by using the ESFA Audit and Risk Committee to help the ESFA Management
Board to address key financial and other risks
Please see a list of all current ESFA ARC and Board members in Annex 2 of the Candidate pack
Essential criteria
Are you a confident individual that can effectively lead a group to achieve set goals
and objectives; do you have experience of providing scrutiny and effective challenge
to support decision making; do you have experience of working flexibly to respond to
the changing needs and priorities of an organisation; do you have experience of
considering issues from a strategic perspective; do you have the ability to use this
strategic perspective to support and challenge ESFA’s Board Chair and Executive
Team in their planning and risk management? If so, we would like to hear from you.
We are focused on equality of opportunity for all, and particularly welcome applications
from women, people with disabilities and neurodivergence, LGBT+ candidates and
those from ethnic minority backgrounds. Please see the essential and desirable
criterion below.
Candidates will be asked to present evidence of the following essential criteria
throughout the selection process:
• Expert knowledge of governance, risk and controls environment and
managing relationships with auditors
• Proven advisory/committee experience as a Non-Executive Director
• Experience in digital/technology including security and business continuity
• Experience of large-scale transformational change and the ability to lead others
through change
• Effective communication and relationship building, including the ability to chair
meetings effectively, influence, challenge and listen sensitively to the views of
others
• Experience of strategic finance and finance operations, at a senior level in a
business or other organisation, with good understanding of effective financial
management disciplines
• The ability to consider issues strategically, contributing to strategic development
with high standards of objectivity and integrity
• Experience related to organisational effectiveness and design (covering process
design and management, programme & project delivery, systems
implementation, customer service, results focus & management information)
• Experience of strong people management
The lead criterion for this role is Expert knowledge of governance, risk and controls
environment and managing relationships with auditors
Desirable criteria
Desirable skills and experience include:
• Commercial/handling of contracts in large scale organisations or a public setting
• Banking experience in debt capacity, monitoring and repayment of loans
• Education sector expertise, including previous experience working with
education providers (for example schools, academy trusts, colleges etc)