6 ways schools can do more with less
The Chancellor’s 2019 Autumn budget was initially due to be delivered on 6 November; however, a delay to Brexit and a snap General Election means we’re still waiting. Nonetheless, education professionals will be keeping a close eye on any increases in spending for schools and academies.
According to research by teachers’ unions, four in five state schools in England will be financially worse off next year than they were in 2015, meaning that, now more than ever, schools must be able to maximise every penny in order to best serve their pupils and staff.
Eliminate lengthy administrative tasks
Needlessly time-consuming tasks are reported to be one of the biggest issues impacting on the efficiency of back office and admin support teams. Eliminating duplication or unnecessary processes will free up resources for more value-add tasks.
We often see schools duplicating tasks across several spreadsheets and paper documents, sometimes by the same member of staff. Consider running an audit into these processes and investigate if any of these documents be digitalised or maintained by cloud-based software.
Review reporting processes
Another key consideration is the accuracy of your reporting processes. If you need to save money on staffing costs, can you identify where the most money is being spent and if this is necessary?
Without system-wide reporting mechanisms in place, you will be unable to identify areas in need of improvement, draining resources or overspend. Following a review of your reporting processes, you might find a need for education-specific software, such as Access Workspace for Education.
Without strong reporting mechanisms, the cost of small jobs soon begins to spiral and it gets difficult to track real-time spending against the original budget plans. To prevent costs needlessly creeping up it is essential that even the smallest of jobs are logged. As with any aspect of school budgeting, the key is to extract the most value from every penny.
Stick to training plans and staff development plans
A well qualified and enthusiastic workforce can improve schools’ performance and, as a result, drive better pupil engagement and deliver better learning. Teaching staff enter the sector to spend as much time as possible in the classroom, so reducing the number of manual tasks that could easily be automated can go a long way to improving job satisfaction.
Staying on track with training plans, staff development and mentoring is tricky, especially if you manage a large team, spread across numerous locations. With a broad range of requirements, identifying and monitoring trends is a crucial part of the development process. Being adaptable to changing circumstances is vital if a programme is to be successful.
Additionally, if these training plans lapse, your staff might become demotivated and consider alternative roles. High staff turnover can be incredibly disruptive and costly.
Are you missing any opportunities?
Reviewing long standing processes will help identify how and where you can make your resources go further. Often, even the most skilled finance teams can miss money saving opportunities. Perhaps reconsider how you procure your services, could you change suppliers or service providers? More often than not, this will lead to monetary savings or improve efficiency.
Challenge the status quo
Sometimes no matter which way you look at it, bold initiatives must be taken in order to balance the books. For example, a number of schools have decided to challenge the status quo and close at noon on a Friday, in an attempt to better allocate resources.
While decisions like this will inevitably be met with criticism, we discussed in a previous blog that they are sometimes necessary in order to keep schools open and ensure high standards of teaching and wellbeing are maintained.
Join forces
A number of maintained schools and LEAs are starting to work together in a more collaborative and creative way, with others considering academisation as a solution to better allocate resources.
Sharing best practice and being able to procure services as part of a larger group will bring significant benefits. Academy software companies, such as The Access Group facilitate collaborative and more efficient ways of working through a central, cloud-based system of online documents and spreadsheets.
By bringing employee records and documents into one centralised system, including letters and contracts, HR and finance teams can instantly streamline lengthy administrative tasks. Cloud-based software can also generate instant, real-time reports - ensuring operations managers can view key metrics at any given time.
Staff are far more likely to remain engaged if they feel listened to and valued. An open dialogue means people are also more likely to discuss their own achievements, frustrations or plans reducing the chance of them looking for a new role. Access Workspace for Education includes powerful communication and collaboration tools to increase engagement across teaching and non-teaching staff, parents, pupils, governors.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that the future for school finance teams looks challenging and despite government plans to invest more than £14billion in primary and secondary education every penny must be spent wisely - with software increasingly being viewed as a potential solution.
