Education and Academies

Our education and academy clients include every type of establishment and institution, with clients in every county across East Anglia and several London boroughs.

With over 100 academy trusts as clients, and over 10 years of experience working with further and higher education institutions, our expert academies and education team can provide a range of services that add value to your organisation. 

We adopt a client-centric and approachable service, with dedicated team members chosen for their integrity, range of knowledge, and experience. 

Meet our Academies Team

Tom Meeks

Tom Meeks standing in office smiling with arms foldedTom is a Senior Statutory Auditor and Head of Price Bailey’s Academies team. In his role as Head of the Academies Team, Tom works across the Price Bailey office network. He has built up a substantial offering in this sector and is one of the country’s leading experts, offering advice that is comprehensive and pragmatic in both pre-emptive and responsive ways, depending on the needs of his clients. In recent years Tom has spent considerable amounts of his own time volunteering as a trustee in a number of local multi-academy trusts. This has given him a unique understanding of not only the world of education, but the important role that governance and strategic thinking play in the development of all organisations. He has been an advisory non-executive director, working with chairs and trust boards in need of support to strengthen their governance structure.

Michael Cooper Davis

Photo of Michael Cooper-Davis, Partner at Price Bailey

Michael is a Senior Statutory Auditor and has specialised in not for profit entities for over 15 years. He has audited a wide variety of not for profit clients including both independent and academy schools and has expert knowledge of the challenges and issues in the sector.  He acts for a number of our academy trusts including both multi academy trusts and single academies.

Michael has advised many of our academy clients in recent times on key sector issues such as grant recognition, tax and VAT issues and related parties. He regularly presents in sector seminars and workshops across both the charity and education sector. Michael enjoys getting to know how academies work and understanding the people involved. He recognises that audit is not just a compliance process, but an opportunity to help clients build better systems, and spot areas to minimise risk and maximise reward.

Suzanne Goldsmith

Photo of Suzanne Goldsmith stood in the Price Bailey Cambridge office.

Suzanne is a Senior Statutory Auditor and has worked as an auditor and advisor to the not for profit sector for over 20 years. Her experience and knowledge covers a variety of organisations including charities, academies, further and higher education, and research organisations in receipt of grant funding. Suzanne often contributes to publications and seminars on relevant sector topics for Price Bailey and for external organisations. She has served as Vice Chair of Trustees and Chair of the Resources Committee of a multi academy trust in Suffolk.

 

India Payne

India sitting in office smiling

India joined Price Bailey in 2013 after completing an Accounting and Finance Degree at Chester University. After qualifying in 2016, she progressed within the Corporate department to specialise in academy schools. India manages the operation of our Academy Helpdesk and external support. She runs our annual audit preparation webinars for academy trust finance teams, along with organising our annual regulatory insight sessions & technical webinars. India is our main point of contact with the ESFA and is a familiar point of contact to all our clients. India also manages a portfolio of academy clients. India volunteers at a local primary school in Gloucestershire as a school reader to support children in their reading journey.

Ian Phillips

Ian standing in office smiling

Ian started at Price Bailey as a trainee in 2013 and joined the audit team in 2015 on rotation basis as part of Price Bailey’s graduate programme. He spent his first academy audit season assisting audit seniors and quickly realised his enjoyment for the work. It was this work in academies that made Ian decide he wanted to make the audit team his permanent home. Ian has been a key part of the academies team ever since. In 2016 he lead academy audits for the first time leading small primary schools before taking on secondary schools in 2017 and multi academy trusts the year after. By 2019 Ian was leading our biggest academy trust audits and starting his transition to becoming a manager. In 2020 Ian took on his first portfolio of clients as manager and looked after a group of new clients who had just joined Price Bailey. Fast forward to today and Ian is a key member of our academy leadership team, as well as managing some of our largest academy trusts. Ian is our local TPS expert and quality reviews all contentious TPS returns. Ian organises our academy resourcing, provides training to our up and coming managers and is a central figure for queries for all of those who work in sector. Outside of Price Bailey Ian is on the Finance Committee of a local Multi Academy Trust.

“I love working with academies and get a great deal of job satisfaction from it. My work on academies is central to my role and has been a key part of my growth. This can be demonstrated by one particular client where I started as an audit assistant whilst they were a single secondary school in 2015, I then returned as their audit lead 2 years later and remained so the following year when they were a 2 school MAT, by the time I lead academy audits for the final time I was still their audit lead but now they had 8 schools. After a year managing smaller trusts I became their manager of an 11 school MAT and remain so to do this day. Myself and this trust have grown together over the past 10 years and its been fantastic building that relationship with them”

Will Short

Photo of Will Short stood in the Price Bailey Bishop's Stortford office.

Will joined Price Bailey as a graduate Trainee in 2014. Will has been involved in the academies team for over 8 years, initially as an audit assistant, and now manages a portfolio of Trusts including single primary schools, secondary schools, multi-academy trusts of various sizes, and faith schools. Will is an integral part of the academy management team. He has detailed knowledge of the academy financial reporting requirements and often provides technical reviews of academy accounts.

 

Louis Hobart

Photo of Louis Hobart stood in the Price Bailey Cambridge office.

Louis has been working with academy trusts since 2012; fulfilling both external and internal audit roles during this time. Louis joined Price Bailey in 2022, and now manages a portfolio of both single and multi-academy trusts. Louis is a core member of the academy management team at Price Bailey, providing technical advice on both accounting and regularity issues, drawing on years of experience in the sector. Academy trusts have been a key part of Louis’ development as an accountant and auditor, and they continue to be a rewarding sector to work within. Outside of Price Bailey, Louis is a Trustee of a local charity; providing an insight and understanding to the role of Academy Trustees.

James Hart

Photo of James Hart stood in the Price Bailey Cambridge office.

James has been involved with the academies sector since starting at Price Bailey, now managing services for various academy trusts across the Greater London area and beyond. Having joined in 2017, James gained a both a keen interest and aptitude for auditing academies, which he has retained throughout his Price Bailey career, now leading the academy leadership team in our City of London office.

James has written various content aimed at improving cyber security in academy trusts and continues to monitor incidents across Price Bailey’s clients in order to improve his, and your, knowledge on cyber threats. James is based in our City of London team, catering primarily to London, Essex, and Hertfordshire based Trusts.

Adam Palmer

Photo of Adam Palmer stood in the Price Bailey Norwich office.

Adam is a manager based in Price Bailey’s Norwich Corporate team. Adam joined Price Bailey in November 2019, having obtained his ACA Qualification in 2017 at a regional accountancy practice. Adam works with a wide variety of clients, ranging from owner-managed businesses to charity and academy clients. Adam is an integral part of the academy management team and manages a portfolio of mainly large multi academy trusts.

Adam has undertaken further ad-hoc assignments in supporting academy trust’s, including due-diligence reviews of new schools joining a MAT and reviewing and reporting on monthly management accounts. This gives him valuable hands-on experience of working from the trust’s perspective.

Sam Slater

Sam joined our Norwich team in 2018, and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2021. Sam has been involved with academy audit’s throughout his 7 years at Price Bailey, starting as a trainee and now managing a portfolio of academy trusts. He has detailed knowledge of the academy financial reporting requirements and provides support to our team of auditors in Norwich.

 

 

Wendy Antoniou

Photo of Wendy Antoniou stood in the Price Bailey Cambridge office.

Wendy joined Price Bailey in January 2025, bringing financial and operational management experience from an array of industries, most recently being within the education sector where she progressed through many functions to be Director of Business and the CFO of a multi academy trust.  She manages our Internal Audit team for academy trust clients where she combines first-hand experience with technical knowledge on our portfolio of internal scrutiny reviews. Wendy also has experience working in student focused roles in both primary and secondary settings, having an earlier career in teaching and class support roles, which aids her understanding of our clients needs. Prior to joining Price Bailey, she led the business and finance functions of a growing special needs trust.

Our team can provide a range of services from, pragmatic and dependable audit services, to due diligence reviews, and guidance on responsibilities associated with the Teacher’s Pension Scheme. We also offer:

  • grant audits
  • corporation tax (statutory returns plus advice on ‘trading’ / gift aid etc.)
  • internal audit, scrutiny, and governance
  • VAT health checks and advice on specific projects
  • company secretarial tasks
  • strategic guidance 
  • systems support 

We can help you fulfil your obligations and can also tailor our work to meet your needs, whether that be a review of the Governance and Financial “musts”, or reviewing and reporting on the wider internal controls through an agreed programme of audit work. 

Testimionals

K Walters, Business Manager at Great Baddow High School said:

Great Baddow High School have engaged Price Bailey as their auditors and financial advisors for the past two years and I personally have worked with them for many more in a previous role. All staff that I have worked with are approachable, personable and helpful. They have a wealth of knowledge in the sector and are always on hand to answer any questions that we may have. We have developed great and lasting relationships with the audit team and always look forward to working with them each year.

P Wilson, Chief Finance Officer at Saffron Academy Trust said:

For the last 13 years Price Bailey have provided excellent professional guidance and audit services both to myself and the Trust. The audits are well planned, rigorous and thorough yet delivered with understanding and an appreciation of the challenges facing education today. I have always found their staff to be both courteous and diligent in the execution of their statutory audit duties and ancillary audit services. I highly recommend them.

A Shah, Finance Director at Nower Hill High School said:

Price Bailey has been our external auditor for five years, and their service has been exceptional. They are highly responsive and proactive in identifying and addressing potential issues well before year-end. I have found their systems and processes to be highly efficient, ensuring smooth and well-organised audits. Our Governors appreciate their clear and insightful summaries of our accounts. Their reliability stands out—I’ve never had to chase them for anything

C Cosson, Head of Finance & Operations at Brighter Futures Educational Trust said:

We have worked with Price Bailey for several years, and have found the team to be very professional, knowledgeable, and approachable. They do an excellent job of keeping us informed as the audit progresses, and provide constructive feedback .They are at the end of the phone throughout the year, not just at the time of the audit; we are always able to approach our audit manager/ partner with any technical or best practice queries. In addition, Price Bailey provide regular training/ update sessions which are extremely useful.

Academy Trusts Regulatory Insights 2025

Academy Trusts Regulatory Insights 2025 - description of our webinars throughout 2025.

All Price Bailey external and internal audit clients will be notified via email of upcoming events and joining details. Alternatively, you can book onto a webinar by visiting our events page. If an event is yet to be published, it will be in due course.

Register your place

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Education and Academies team

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