Financial Management in Schools

Neil Townsend

NCSL

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Purpose of this Session

To introduce the tools and support being offered through the Financial Management in Schools project (FMiS) and the DfES Standard and Toolkit

To seek your input on what further Financial Management training or support would be helpful

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• The FMiS Project

– Workshops

– Consultancy & Helpdesk

– Online help

• The DfES standard and toolkit

• Benchmarking (using CFR)

• What’s planned

• Input from you

Today

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• FMiS programme – One of measures announced in statement on October 29th

– help schools improve their Financial Management

• Programme comprises:

– strategic financial planning workshops

– consultancy

– helpdesk

– website

• Programme put together by a partnership of organisations – DfES, NCSL, KPMG, SHA, NAHT, NAGM, NGC, Confed

• The package will give priority to those schools in the LEAs who will be receiving the Transitional Grant

• The project team working closely with LEAs - workshop and follow on support complements what LEAs already offering to schools

Financial Management in Schools (FMiS)

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FMiS - Workshops

1 Host

1 Educationalist 1 KPMG

1 Admin

• 40 delegates per workshop

• 2 delegates per school (Head plus 1)

• 1 day

• Initial allocation of 50 workshops between mid January and end of March

• Schools only pay cover and travel expenses

• LEA Finance Officer participation

1000 schools - 2000 delegates

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Purpose and objectives for Strategic Financial Planning Workshop

To help schools with effective strategic financial planning

Purpose

• To develop understanding of the parameters underpinning the current school funding framework

• To offer a process for strategic financial planning

• To highlight the link between financial management and longer term school improvement strategies

• To consider some tools, checklists and ideas that can be used to examine both income and expenditure, with a view to optimising the use of all available resources

• To identify sources of support available to schools to assist with effective strategic financial planning

• To help each school get started and identify next steps towards an appropriate plan of action

Objectives

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FMiS Consultancy & Helpdesk

• Face to face consultancy

– Undertaken by education/finance experts from KPMG

– For those schools in most need of help

– LEAs will decide which schools these are and how to use the consulting resources

– To take place up to two weeks after workshops

– KPMG will liaise directly with LEAs and work closely with them

• Helpdesk

– Email facility with agreed response times

– Supported by expert practitioner bought in by NCSL

– Access to experts from a variety of sources

– FMiSHelp@remodelling.org

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Online delivery — home page

http://www.ncsl.org.uk/fmis

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DfES FM Standard & Toolkit

• Due to be launched in March

• New guidance documents have been available in draft form for consultation on VfM and NCSL web sites

• For all secondary and some primary schools to achieve

• Scoring system to assess quality of Financial Management in schools

(Home/Benchmarking/Financial Management in Schools)

Will be on Teachernet when launched

http://www. dfes.gov.uk/valueformoney

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DfES Standard

• A standard for financial management in schools to provide schools with a clear and consistent target

• A self-evaluation tool for schools to identify their own current strengths and weaknesses

• An external evaluation tool for those schools that wish to seek an external and independent opinion on whether they met the standard or not

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DfES Quality Standard Sections

• Leadership and Governance - clear leadership and effective governance

• People - to have financially competent staff properly supported and directed

• Policy and a Strategy - how to deploy resources to ensure school objectives are met and activities are affordable

• Partnerships and Resources – uses resources efficiently and effectively and seeks to access new resources

• Processes - plans are delivered, waste is minimised and fraud is made unlikely through the operation of sound planning, monitoring, control and reporting

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DfES Toolkit

• Guides schools through the process to achieve the standard

• A guide to the existing documents and resources on good financial management practice

• Additional good practice guides where gaps exist

• Links to training and web applications to help reach the standard and better manage finances and resources

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Why benchmark?

Benchmarking expenditure helps schools to:

• focus on planning and managing their budgets

• identify areas for improvement

• set targets for improvement

• achieve best value – quality vs. cost

• improve the effectiveness of spending in order to improve performance

• deliver educational services to a defined standard

• learn from other schools.

Benchmarking finances can lock the school into a cycle of continuous improvement by developing a culture where it is

easier to question the norm and to make changes.

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Data that could be benchmarked

• Average cost per teacher

• Pupil teacher ratio

• Contact ratio (secondary)

• Average class size (primary)

• Average class sizes for Key stage 3,4 and 5 and then broken down by year (secondary)

• Total staff costs as % of costs and broken down further into teaching, learning support, admin, premises and management staff

• Current spend per pupil

• External contract costs as % of expenditure

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http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/tools/schoolfinance/

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Zooming in …

Income per pupil

Expenditure on teachers

per pupil

Premises costs as % of total expenditure

Expenditure on education support staff

per pupil

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What’s next?

• DfES Standard & Toolkit available by end of March

• E-learning for workshop online by end of March

• Embed FMiS into business as usual training programmes through the NCSL

– NPQH, HIP

• Looking at FMiS beyond March

– Extending workshops to more schools across all LEAs?

– Extending one-to-one support to more schools?

– Continue support for online community?

–Workshops for LEA staff?

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Your input

• What else do you think could be done to improve Financial Management and planning?

– How to ensure the School Improvement Plan and the Financial Plan are aligned?

– How to encourage Strategic Financial Planning rather than budgeting?

• How could we help/support Governors better?

• What else should we be doing?

– Training?

– Coaching?

– Tools?