what you need to know about driving your budget from the school development plan 1 presented by neil...

What You Need to know about driving your budget from the school development plan

1Presented byNeil Charlton-Jones

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Workshop Objective

“To introduce the concept of driving your budget from the school development plan and to discuss practical ways on how this can be

applied in your school”

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•Why Plan Strategically

•6 steps to strategic planning

•Pitfalls to strategic planning

•Outcomes of strategic planning

•Questions and answers

Workshop Topics

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Background

• Uncertainty in the future funding available• National formula• MFG funding level/Calculation• Delays in funding information• Changes to grants• Academy conversion

• Not all bad news….

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What does planning strategically mean?

Strategic planning is an organisation’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its resource and people.

Can it be done in times of uncertainty?

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Strategic Plan Templar • Introduction• Mission Statement and School Aims• Financial Projections-Base Plan• Assumptions within the Financial Projections• Sensitivity Analysis-”What if Scenarios”• Monitoring & Evaluation• Conclusions and Summary

What data is required to create a strategic plan

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Section - The main areas of

the School Development Plan (Action

points)

Objective / Department -

Key objectives or department

title

Actioned By? – Name or title of staff member who is responsible for delivering this element of the action plan

Monitoring Responsibility – Name or title of staff member who is responsible for monitoring.

Evaluating Responsibility - Individual or group responsible for measuring impact (value for money?).

Timescales - Identifies when the activity will

take place.

Costings - The resources

requirement is identified by term.

CFR / Cost Centre / Ledger Code / Income

Source - Resources can be allocated to

Ledger Code and Cost Centre.

Links with ECM Agenda – ECM

outcomes can be tagged to each

activity.

Success Criteria - This gives a SMART statement in order to measure the success of

each activity.

Effect on Teaching and Learning – Statement of the impact on

teaching and learning as a result of this specific activity.

Priority – Attach priority

order to objectives.

Percentage Complete –Enables the progress to be

monitored.

Activities – Brief

description of each activity.

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• School Improvement Partners• LA Finance Teams• School Leadership Teams• School Business Managers

Greater Collaboration

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Building the remainder of the Financial Projections

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Ensuring Best Value

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Money Saving Staffing accounts for approx 78% of spendSchools spend £9.2bn on other areas including energy, catering and back office. The benefits of effective procurement practices include: •Financial savings that can then be re-invested in your priorities for driving up standards •Ensuring that the goods or services purchased are fit for purpose •Ensuring suppliers deliver (and continue to deliver) as agreed Ensuring legal and financial obligations are complied with.

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• Energy• Administrative Supplies • Cleaning and Caretaking • Telephone and Broadband • Exam Fees • Shared services • Photocopiers

DfE Schools Procurement Resource 2012: Buying for your school

Key areas identified for potential savings

The benchmarking website is a useful tool forschools to check their expenditure level against

peers and to challenge their planning assumptions.

It can be accessed athttps://www.education.gov.uk/sfb/login.aspx

Benchmarking

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Making Finances Fit - Strategy

Examine all other costs, do they represent ‘best value’? Is your starting point reliable?

Ensure that your planned expenditure matches your projected income?

Identify School Development/Improvement Plan Resource Requirements

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Start at the end and work backwards; what are the options? downscale, defer, abolish

Re-examine priorities; what are the short, medium and longer term implications?

Option appraisal (opportunity costs, cost/benefit analysis)

Key Benefits in Strategic Planning• Strategic decision making is closely linked to the budget cycle ensuring

that financial decisions have the greatest impact on educational outcomes.

• Raises staff awareness and widens responsibility and ownership of the school budget & improvement planning

• The budget is subject to consistent and regular monitoring and evaluation of outcomes.

• Ensures that success or failure of investment is clearly identified.

• Ensures that key variables are identified as part of the planning process

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Top 8 Mistakes in Strategic Planning• Data Poor (and Time Rich)• Over Programmed • Failure to Engage • Weak Link to the Financial Plan• Fear of Prioritising • Inadequate Use of Scenarios• Poor Implementation • Impatience

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Summary Always start annual budgeting from development plan agreed

priorities; Zero base v incrementalism; examine existing spending patterns; Plan for problems now; think two or three years ahead; Scenario Planning for different outcomes share budgeting with key people in your team

If you’re not sure where you’re going you’ll probably end up somewhere else.

And finally......

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Thank You

Thank you – any questions?

Contact

neil@hcsseducation.co.uk