Supplier management for schools and academy trusts

Schools buy from a long tail of suppliers: catering, cleaning, IT and edtech, transport, building work, agency staff, trips and music tuition. Most are small, but each one spends public money, many come onto site where children are, and plenty handle pupil data. Academy trusts also answer to the Department for Education (DfE) through the Academy Trust Handbook. This page sets out what that means for managing suppliers, and how SupplierVault helps.

What's different for schools and trusts

Related party rules are strict. Buying from a business linked to a trustee, member, local governor or their family has its own reporting and approval rules (below).
The financial year runs from 1 September to 31 August for academy trusts, so spend limits and annual reports follow the academic year.
Safeguarding reaches suppliers. Contractors who work on site need the right checks and supervision.
Pupil data is sensitive. Edtech, MIS and cloud suppliers process children's personal data, which needs a proper data processing agreement and often a data protection impact assessment.
Multi-academy trusts need to see suppliers across all their schools, while each school keeps its own day-to-day records.

The rules and expectations that apply

Academy Trust Handbook

The Academy Trust Handbook sets the financial rules academy trusts must follow. The 2026 edition is effective from 1 October 2026. In it:

Trusts must report all contracts and other agreements with related parties to DfE in advance of the contract starting or being renewed, using DfE's online form (paragraph 5.42).
Trusts need DfE's prior approval for supplies from a related party where a contract or agreement exceeds £40,000 in the same financial year ending 31 August (paragraph 5.43), with some exemptions, such as supplies from sponsor universities, colleges and state-funded schools. Novel, contentious or repercussive transactions need approval whatever their value (paragraph 5.45).
Trusts must keep and publish a register of business and financial interests for members, trustees, local governors and the accounting officer (paragraphs 1.51 to 1.55).
Trusts must follow the procurement rules and thresholds in the Procurement Act 2023 and make sure spending decisions represent value for money (paragraph 2.25). There are specific rules for energy (DfE's Energy for Schools service or a DfE-approved deal, paragraph 2.29) and for management information system contracts (DfE's MIS framework, paragraph 2.30).
The board must notify DfE of fraud, theft or irregularity over £5,000, individually or cumulatively in a financial year (paragraph 6.10). Change-of-bank-details fraud is one of the commonest ways this happens.

Procurement Act 2023

Academy trusts are contracting authorities under the Procurement Act 2023, which came into force on 24 February 2025. Contracts at or above the threshold (£207,720 including VAT for goods and services from 1 January 2026) follow the Act's full rules. Some duties, including below-threshold notices, don't apply to procurement by schools. Check what applies to your trust with our Procurement Act checker and your adviser.

Keeping children safe in education

The statutory guidance Keeping children safe in education expects schools to make sure contractors and their staff who work on site have had the appropriate level of safeguarding checks, and to check their identity when they arrive. Record which checks a contractor has done and how they will be supervised before the work starts.

Maintained schools

Maintained schools follow their local authority's scheme for financing schools and its contract standing orders rather than the Academy Trust Handbook. The good practice on this page still applies.

What to check with your suppliers

Supplier type	Typical checks
Any supplier	Related party declaration, Companies House, bank detail verification with a call-back, insurance
Contractors on site	Safeguarding checks (DBS where required), supervision plan, risk assessments and method statements, trade registrations such as Gas Safe
Edtech, MIS and cloud services	Data processing agreement meeting UK GDPR Article 28, data protection impact assessment, where data is held, Cyber Essentials
Catering	Food hygiene rating, allergen controls, insurance
Agency staff and tutors	Safeguarding checks confirmed in writing by the agency, right to work

Where to start in SupplierVault

Choose the Schools and multi-academy trusts starter set-up, or tick "Academy trust" in Settings at any time. Then:

Suppliers marked as a related party record the connection, any donations, the date reported to DfE and, over £40,000, DfE's approval and reference.
Purchase requests to a related party are held until the report to DfE (and approval, where needed) is recorded.
Spend is shown for the financial year to 31 August, and the Related and connected parties report lists everything for your annual accounts.
Bank detail changes put the supplier's invoices on hold until a call-back and checks are recorded, and a second person releases payment.
Switch on the Procurement Act 2023 module and tick "We're a school" if it applies, to track the Act's duties for each contract.
On the Enterprise plan, each school keeps its own SupplierVault and the trust sees a read-only group view of suppliers, renewals and certificates.

Every setting can be changed afterwards. SupplierVault records the evidence; your trust's own policies and advisers decide what applies.

Useful guides and tools

Sources

Academy trust handbook 2026 (GOV.UK)
Report or seek approval for related party transactions: summary guidance (GOV.UK)
Keeping children safe in education (GOV.UK)
Procurement Act 2023: below-threshold contracts guidance (GOV.UK, PDF)

Free toolDoes the Procurement Act 2023 apply to us?Plain-language steps through contracting authority types, thresholds and exemptions, with links to the official guidance.GuidePenny tests and bank detail fraudA simple, repeatable process for checking supplier bank details before any real payment is made.Who it's forSupplier management for charitiesConflicts of interest, connected parties, payment fraud and partners who spend your money, handled the way trustees and the Charity Commission expect.