Transformation Strategy 2022 - 2027

Schools

1.    What do we need to transform and why?

To assist schools in identifying cost reductions and better ways of working and support the development of sustainable school budgets and help protect front line academic provision.

 

2.    What do we need to transform and why?

The TIC Schools’ Programme was established in 2017 to support our schools as education budgets come under increasing pressure whilst schools strive to maintain high quality outcomes for children and young people. The programme aims to apply the core TIC principles of collaborative working and challenging existing practices by engaging with schools to support head teachers and governing bodies in taking advantage of cost saving opportunities across a wide range of activities.

A key focus of the programme to date has been to work with schools to identify alternative procurement arrangements for a range of support services, and this work helped deliver over cost reductions of over £1million to date. These have included printing and copying, telephone services, stationery and educational resources and waste and recycling, among others. Moving forward, it will be necessary to continue to raise awareness of these opportunities and encourage schools to maintain a focus on achieving Best Value and consider the most efficient deployment of resources in their spending plans, particularly when there are changes in leadership. This can be achieved through regular newsletters and formal engagement sessions with school governors which have taken place in the past.

The programme has also sought to improve the quality and value for money of a range of operational services provided to schools including building cleaning, property maintenance and grounds maintenance. These reviews have generated a number of positive outcomes including the introduction of the Property ‘Handyvan’ Service for schools which has the potential to deliver significant change and improvement in the quality of the service received by schools. Early feedback from primary head teachers on the service suggests that it is having a positive impact and it is hoped that, following the current pilot phase, schools will be willing to fund the service direct from school budgets in the future.

Another key activity promoted by the programme is the sharing of good practice in planning for efficient budget setting and making savings in all areas of school operation by using locally derived benchmarking data to enable schools to compare their spending with others. Enabling schools to compare themselves with others in the county across a range of curriculum, staffing and operational areas rather than operating in isolation has enabled open dialogue and good practice to be shared between schools in terms of operating more efficiently. For example, a number of schools have reviewed their staffing profiles in light of information in the benchmarking documents and revised their TLR structures leading to savings and leaner structures. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the efficacy of schools’ financial data which has meant that the benchmarking activity has been curtailed over the past two years, but it is planned to re-energise this work in the coming months and into the next academic year.

The use of financial efficiency templates to provide schools with a financial ‘health-check’ has also been trialled with a number of individual schools and it is hoped that it will be possible to develop this in the future alongside the benchmarking work to support schools in developing sustainable budgets. These reports can also be used to contribute to the evidence base in considering business plans and decision making in the context of the MEP review.

Over the past two years, the programme has become more embedded more firmly in the work of the Access to Education division within the Education and Children Department, in particular through contributing to the MEP review which is considering the future sustainability of the school footprint across the Authority. This has included ongoing work to develop a new programme of School Suitability assessments and supporting with school capacity calculations, all of which contribute to the strategic MEP review.

 

3.    Key Objectives

• To support schools in identifying ways of developing sustainable financial budgets in the short, medium and long term and ensure that this work is aligned with the Council’ Sustainable Learning Communities Programme.
• To engage Governing Bodies in discussions in relation to potential efficiencies and costs savings within school budgets.
• To develop a framework to share and disseminate good practice across schools.
• To work closely with key Council services to identify data and information which can be used to inform discussions with schools in relation to potential savings opportunities e.g. staffing structures, business support, class sizes.
• To further develop and enhance the role of strategic procurement within schools and to support the use of appropriate frameworks to ensure value for money from school expenditure.
• To support a re-modelling of the relationship between schools and key Council services in relation to areas of delegated spend e.g. property and grounds maintenance. 
• To develop mechanisms to support data benchmarking across the county’s schools in relation to key areas of expenditure.
• To work with the Council’s HR Unit and Headteachers with a view to reducing expenditure relating to sickness absence, and recruitment and selection, including the use of supply teachers.

 

4.    What will be our priorities for the coming year and beyond?

• Carry out Expenditure / Routine Spend Benchmarking activities and share data with secondary schools to stimulate discussion and facilitate sharing of good practice in sustainable budget setting by November 2022.
• Develop and extend the use of Financial Efficiency templates with identified schools to support and challenge those in financial difficulty. Initial priority schools by March 2023.
• Review the impact of Schools’ Property ‘Handyvan’ Service initiative to ensure cost effectiveness for schools and the LA and inform sustainable future development. Initial report and evaluation complete, ongoing monitoring with final evaluation by February 2023.
• Continue and embed recommendations from the review of Grounds Maintenance to support schools with a more efficient and cost-effective service by March 2023.
• Investigate high expenditure areas in school budgets, e.g use of agency/supply  and establish links with the wider corporate agenda. Align with corporate work in this area by June 2023.
• Investigate cluster/shared approaches to back-office functions in schools to utilise economies of scale and more efficient working, especially in smaller primary schools by July 2023.
• Implement findings of Review of SLAs across departments and with schools. Review recommendations by March 2023.
• Continue to identify savings opportunities for schools from corporate procurement contracts and communicate these to schools to ensure Best Value approaches to services and key expenditure areas. Ongoing. 
• Utilise the regular School Operations Briefings and ECS Newsletters to communicate and share good practice in all financial matters. Ongoing. 
• Continue with the rolling programme of School Suitability Surveys as part of the wider review and implementation of the Sustainable Communities for Learning (MEP) programme. Ongoing, secondary schools to be completed by December 2022.
• Lead on the Rising 4s project to identify a more efficient and cost-effective nursery provision in schools by March 2023.
• Undertake review of Catchment areas in line with the Sustainable Communities for Learning (MEP) programme. To be confirmed as aligned with SCL review.
• Support the ALN department in developing more cost effective funding models for mainstream and specialist ALN provision in schools and specialist unit by March 2023.

 

5.    How will we measure the impact of this work ?

• Financial efficiencies for schools
• Overall impact on school budgets
• Service improvement
• Contribution to system change

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