1. What You Need to know about driving your budget from the school development plan
Presented by
Neil Charlton-Jones

2. 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”

3. Workshop Topics Why Plan Strategically 6 steps to strategic planning
Pitfalls to strategic planning
Outcomes of strategic planning
Questions and answers

4. 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….

5. 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?

6. 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

7. What data is required to create a strategic plan

8. Priority – Attach priority order to objectives.
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?).
Priority – Attach priority order to objectives.
Timescales - Identifies when the activity will take place.
Section - The main areas of the School Development Plan (Action points)
Costings - The resources requirement is identified by term.
Objective / Department - Key objectives or department title
CFR / Cost Centre / Ledger Code / Income Source - Resources can be allocated to Ledger Code and Cost Centre.
Activities – Brief description of each activity.
Links with ECM Agenda – ECM outcomes can be tagged to each activity.
Effect on Teaching and Learning – Statement of the impact on teaching and learning as a result of this specific activity.
Percentage Complete – Enables the progress to be monitored.
Success Criteria - This gives a SMART statement in order to measure the success of each activity.

9. Greater Collaboration
School Improvement Partners
LA Finance Teams
School Leadership Teams
School Business Managers

10. Building the remainder of the Financial Projections
Budget Allocations (LA/Other)
Support Staff Costs
Other Staff Costs
Other Grant Funding
Occupancy Costs
Capital Income
Curriculum Costs
Teaching Staff Costs
SLA Costs Capital Costs

11. Ensuring Best Value Cost
Do goods meet the objectives (fit for purpose)
Quality
Warranties
Service & back up
Sustainability
Speed of delivery
Local Provider
Reliability
Support the Environment?

12. Money Saving Staffing accounts for approx 78% of spend
Schools 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.

13. Key areas identified for potential savings
Energy
Administrative Supplies
Cleaning and Caretaking
Telephone and Broadband
Exam Fees
Shared services
Photocopiers
DfE Schools Procurement Resource 2012: Buying for your school

14. The benchmarking website is a useful tool for
schools to check their expenditure level against peers and to challenge their planning assumptions.
It can be accessed at

15. Making Finances Fit - Strategy
Identify School Development/Improvement Plan Resource Requirements
Examine all other costs, do they represent ‘best value’? Is your starting point reliable?
Ensure that your planned expenditure matches your projected income?

16. Option appraisal (opportunity costs, cost/benefit analysis)
Re-examine priorities; what are the short, medium and longer term implications?
Start at the end and work backwards; what are the options? downscale, defer, abolish
Option appraisal (opportunity costs, cost/benefit analysis)

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

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

21. Thank You
Thank you – any questions?
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