school financing | Schools Week

‘The Parent Pound’ – Should schools ask parents for donations to cover squeezed budgets?

As one school consults parents on regular cash contributions to boost its ailing coffers, editor Laura McInerney considers the implications Schools are facing a grim financial situation. Planned increases in pensions and national insurance are rocketing staff costs, which are already around 80 per cent of what school budgets are spent on. Heads only […]

Know the risk of getting outside help with procurement

Schools are busy, under-resourced places that often turn to outside agencies for help. But beware: there is a trade-off between getting the job done and the potential risks of doing so Budget constraints and the scale of academy conversions has led to different buying responsibilities landing in the trays of teachers and school business managers. […]

How can we make schools more efficient?

Schools lose 80 per cent of their budgets to salaries, but they could be more creative with the remaining 20 per cent and drive down costs The education sector has grappled with efficiency for a number of years now and various initiatives have gone some way to improving operational effectiveness and a commitment to value […]

Changes in the Financial Handbook for Academies

The focus this year is on transparency, with the 2015 handbook seeking to bring in new rules to ensure academies spend public money wisely and fairly The annual Financial Handbook for Academies is rapidly becoming a rule book for the industry – and the 2015 edition contains several stand-out changes that need careful consideration. Here […]

How to understand your academy’s finances

It can be daunting, but academy trustees are legally bound to understand the financial position of their school. Read on . . . Academy trust finances continue to be a hot topic and one of concern to many of those responsible for them. The board of trustees, or governors, shoulder this crucial obligation and must ensure academy […]

Forget (most of) your post-election blues

Funding cuts, a recruitment crisis . . . what is there to be happy about? Well, the quality of the profession and the initial signals the government is sending about how it will work with it So, the job of steering the school system through its most difficult challenges for a generation falls to Nicky […]

There aren’t enough academy sponsors for ‘coasting schools’ – so why not let for-profit providers try?

James Croft gives his take on plans to force “coasting” schools to become academies as revealed in today’s Queen’s Speech. A shortage of high quality academy sponsors and an inefficient brokering system threaten successful delivery of government’s plans for improvement of coasting schools. It has been evident for some time that there is a shortage of high […]

Let’s take a deep breath and make changes

A Conservative government with Nicky Morgan as secretary of state gives some chance of stability to allow schools to implement changes already in the pipeline In the National Governors’ Association (NGA) manifesto published a year ago we called for a period of stability, the most called-for request by our members – governors and trustees across […]

Thoughts from after the election

The Conservatives have a clear majority. So what is the reality for school leaders, governors and teachers? Many of us will remember the 1997 election and the glow of Tony Blair’s campaign mantra: education, education, education! We recall, too, the excellent, school-sympathetic secretaries of state for education under Labour – Blunkett, Morris, Johnson, even Balls […]