From Audit Commission: Valuable Lessons July 2009

Transcription

1 From Audit Commission: Valuable Lessons July ROVING%20ECONOMY%20AND%20EFFICIENCY%20IN%20SCHOOLS%2030%20JUN% PDF 1

2 Valuable Lessons: Teachers Guide Is any of this familiar?..your budget is under pressure and you are uncertain about future funding...you have heard of other schools making significant savings, or spending less than you do, on certain goods and services...you have ambitious plans for the future, but don t know what they will cost to implement...your surplus revenue balance continues to increase...you wonder if greater collaboration with other nearby schools could help with budget pressures...you aren t sure what information will help you deploy your resources in the most efficient way...you do not know the cost of the improvements in attainment you have already achieved, or the cost of the ones you want to make. 2

3 Questions to consider: Considering the financial implications of school plans 3 How well do your spending patterns reflect the school s development plan and priorities? How well does your school development plan cover staff costs? What links do you make between what you spend on staff or goods and services and educational and well-being outcomes? How does the three-year financial and school development plan assess potential changes in pupil numbers or major costs? What contingency arrangements does it include? How will you know if the assumptions in the plan prove to be too optimistic?

4 Questions to consider: Reviewing Financial Balance 4 Is your surplus balance in excess of the recommended level? If so, what is your plan to reduce the balance? Is it working? How confident are you that the plan will reduce the balance? How well does the extra spending link to your priorities? School balances can only be spent once; can you be sure that your balance is not committed to recurring expenditure? For schools in deficit Do you have a deficit management plan? How will you achieve it? Is it working?

5 5 Questions to Consider: Procuring Goods and Services that represent value for money How well do the goods and services that you buy meet your requirements? If they do not, have you considered the alternatives? How well do your choices of goods and services align with your priorities? Which goods and services cost you most and which do you spend more on than other schools? Have you reviewed whether there are better or cheaper alternatives? Are you reviewing the quality and cost of each individual service bought from the council annually? How are you using technology, including electronic procurement, to minimise the cost of purchasing goods and services?

6 Questions to consider: Effective deployment of the workforce 6 Are you confident that: school staff have appropriate authority to take buying decisions? the thresholds over which quotes and tenders must be sought are understood and reported? there is effective separation of duties between the authorisation and processing of purchasing decisions? you can produce an audit trail for all major buying decisions? Has your school made savings by using goods and services more efficiently? How can you use your goods or services more efficiently to reduce your costs?

7 7 Questions to consider: Effective deployment of the workforce

8 Questions to consider: Effective deployment of the workforce For existing staff How well does the pattern of staff deployment follow your school s vision and the priorities outlined in the school development plan? How do you ensure this happens? How well does the workforce deployment by subject or year group match your school s priorities? How well do you understand the cost of changes to the breadth of the curriculum or class structures? To what extent is the current, or desired, curriculum offer affordable? If it is unaffordable, what options for working with other schools have you considered? 8

9 Questions to consider: Effective deployment of the workforce For new posts How well do you understand the long-term financial consequences of creating a new post? How does any proposed new post support the school s vision and school development plan? Does the school know from which budget a new post will be funded? Absence cover How has the school assessed the value for money of different supply and cover staff arrangements and any temporary staff? What options has it explored? 9

10 Questions to consider: Collaborating with other schools What opportunities are there to buy goods and services or carry out joint training with other schools? What are the opportunities to share teaching or non-teaching staff with other schools to save money? What are the opportunities to buy or sell specialist staff skills between local schools? Have you reviewed the costs and benefits of federation or clustering or partnership with other schools to achieve possible economies of scale? 10

11 From Audit Commission: Better Value for Money in Schools March COMMISSION.GOV.UK/CHILDRENANDYOUNGPEOPLE/PAGES/BETTERVALUEFORMONEYINSCHOOLS.ASPX 11

12 Classroom Deployment How does your school make sure that your timetable is efficient, and that all teachers are always allocated to either teach or to PPA or management time? How have you ensured that the PPA and management time is sufficient but not excessive for your teachers needs? How well are your administrative staff integrated into the teachers work day to ensure they effectively minimise the amount of non-teaching work teachers have to carry out? How well is your school working with other schools to look at the opportunities collaboration could bring to improve teacher utilisation? 12

13 Classroom Deployment 13 How have you considered if your year groups are large enough to allow for potential savings from larger classes? How have you considered the limitations from your school building, your curriculum or your pupil population that make larger classes unfeasible? How have you considered the role and responsibilities of teaching assistants in your school? How have you communicated these roles and responsibilities to the rest of the school workforce, parents and pupils? How have you reviewed how your teaching assistants have reduced teacher workloads, and supported improved educational attainment? How have you considered the contribution your teaching assistants have made to help achieve the schools objectives and outcomes for pupils? What is the quality of support, performance management, training and development for the teaching assistants in your school? How do you know if the use of teaching assistants in your school has had positive or negative impact on the pupils in your school?

14 Curriculum breadth How do you use the spare time in the curriculum? How do you decide? What scope do you have to adjust your subject offer to achieve financial balance as funding becomes tighter? How would this impact on the provision of a balanced and broadly based curriculum? How have you reviewed the cost of your optional Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 subjects with small numbers of pupils? Are there subjects taken by a few pupils that are not financially sustainable? How have you used the Audit Commission workforce costing tool (secondary schools) to cost individual subject departments? Could you train teachers to teach more than one subject to save money? How have you analysed how the curriculum offer affects your ability to attract pupils to your school? How have you worked with the council school improvement team to get a better understanding about the cost of curriculum choices? 14

15 Curriculum breadth How has your spending on bought-in curriculum services changed over time? How do you know you are getting good value for money? How might you save money on bought-in curriculum services? In what ways could bought-in services be used to build your capacity to provide these services in-house in future? What scope do you have, given local labour market constraints, to use teacher recruitment to maximise the breadth of skills, and therefore curriculum in the school workforce? 15

16 Managing staff absence & cover 16 How do you know that the school s strategy for managing staff absence is clear, fit for purpose, and widely understood? What does your review of current and historical patterns of absence and your benchmarking against others tell you? Who has named responsibility for absence management? How does the senior leadership team manage the issue? Have you considered working collaboratively with other local schools to cover sickness absences? How can you make sure you get the best support from your local council to apply best practice in absence management? What scope does the school have to make use of existing teachers to cover? What are the financial and educational implications of employing a floating teacher to cover absence? What use is the school making of qualified support staff to cover shortterm absence? Do you support training for these designated roles? What options have you explored (for example revised timetabling or collaboration with other schools) for ensuring you have in-house cover?

17 Managing staff absence & cover How do you monitor and report on the use and costs of supply teachers? How have these changed over time? How have you benchmarked spend on supply teachers locally and with similar schools? How do you justify your spend - by need or supply teacher quality? How have you assessed the relative costs of direct contracts with supply teachers and using agency staff? Have you conducted a financial analysis of the viability of supply teacher insurance? 17

18 The wider schools workforce How has the balance between teachers and the wider workforce changed over time? Was any change planned? Does this balance still reflect the current objectives of the school? To what extent have you explored the scope for sharing support staff with other schools? How do you measure the impact of the deployment and use of support staff on educational outcomes? Have you evaluated the impact of educational support staff roles to ensure you still require the hours; grade and responsibility level? Have you explored the scope for sharing educational support staff with other schools? How do you measure how the deployment and use of support staff contributes to educational outcomes? 18

19 The wider schools workforce What is the current profile of administrative and clerical staff in the school? How do current roles link to educational outcomes? How can you be sure that school business managers and other finance managers provide value for money? What role do these staff play in senior leadership decisions? What is the balance of spend between administrative and clerical staff and additional spending on teachers TLR points? How well has your school examined the potential for savings from sharing premises staff across local schools? When did the school last review its options for providing catering? How can you achieve the best balance between the quality and cost of catering? How does the provision of community-focused extended school services change staff costs? Has the school calculated whether funding for and income from these services covers staff costs? What are the costs and benefits of using bought-in professional services? How well does funding for this support cover costs? 19

20 Useful websites 20 DfE Review of Efficiency in the Schools System site Audit Commission workforce booklets: March tcommission.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/pages/bettervalueformoneyin schools.aspx DfE workforce analysis tool tool.pdf National College: Securing the best for less anaging-schools/manage-resources/securing-the-best-for-less.htm Valuable Lessons: Audit Commission reports: July %20Lessons%20improving%20economy%20and%20efficiency%20in%20s chools%2030%20jun% pdf