Mr Pettifer told the trust it had to complete redundancies by the end of March and put the new staff restructure in place by the beginning of May.
The trust was asked to ensure that it made a surplus in the 2020/21 and was in the black overall two years later.
In a statement, the trustees said they were “disappointed that, despite the progress we have made, the ESFA has issued a financial notice to improve”.
They said since the establishment of the academy trut in 2018, it had been working closely with the ESFA to address the financial challenges it had inherited.
They were confident they had a clear recovery plan “which will address the challenges we face, enable the schools to become financially sustainable and meet the timetable for repaying the loans provided by the ESFA. Recent external monitoring visits have also confirmed that we are making good progress in improving the education of the children we serve.”
