Scenario Two:
Consultancy brief to re-organise SBM services in a small Local Authority
You have been approached by a small Local Authority to act as consultant on the re-organisation of school business management services in the 6 Secondary Schools in the Authority.
These Secondary schools vary in size and location. There are three schools located in urban areas. These are the larger schools in the Authority, with numbers on roll ranging from 1000 to 1500 students. However, there are also three smaller schools, each serving a dispersed community in the rural areas of the Local Authority.
The Secondary schools are all involved in 14-19 Partnerships with the FE College in the main town in the Authority. This partnership working has proved difficult to develop over the years, as the schools compete for student numbers, and the relationship with the FE College is a comparatively new development.
School A: Large urban secondary, with very experienced School Business Manager (ADSBM) who is retiring at the end of the academic year. She has a very effective working relationship with the Headteacher and track-record of entrepreneurial activity through a limited company providing local training opportunities.
School B: Large urban secondary, with ambitious new Headteacher who is also a Chartered Accountant. There is a SBM in post, currently managing a programme of restructuring and redundancies due to loss of funding and falling roll.
School C: Middle-sized secondary, serving smaller town in the Local Authority, buoyant numbers on roll, but facing difficult financial circumstances following retirement of previous Headteacher (recovery plan in place). The new Head has previous success in turning schools around and wishes to transform the school culture and curriculum offer. This school has a School Business Administrator (CSBM), who aspires to be an SBM but has limited ability.
School D: Very successful Secondary school serving a comparatively affluent rural community in the northern. Buoyant recruitment, at expense of school E. Prudent Headteacher, supported by a School Business Manager, who is also due to retire shortly. This is the only PFI school in the Authority.
School E: Secondary school in small coastal town, numbers on roll declining. Very decisive Headteacher who leads the school from the front, very much involved in strategic decision-making and financial planning. She has the active support of an experienced, but under-qualified SBM. The school is struggling financially.
School F: Very small Secondary school, serving remote area in the Authority. Numbers now increasing, but the school has suffered from some neglect in the past; the school site is very poor (1930’s construction), but improvements to access and site are now being made. The SBM has just retired; the Headteacher has made internal promotion of Facilities Manager to this post.
The Director of Education has approached you informally to discuss an initial consultancy programme to evaluate the depth of school business management expertise across the schools and suggest ways forward for building capacity. In particular, the Director is concerned about just how robust the schools’ financial management arrangements are in practice. He has asked you to look at the schools, and evaluate the effectiveness of their financial planning systems. Perhaps an audit might be way of achieving this. The LA has already set out plans for the reduction of funding to schools over the next three years (5% reduction on a year-by-year basis). He has emphasised that the need for cost-reduction includes the rationalisation of school business management in the schools, and feels that this is a potential area for saving money.
This is a successful, but rather paternalistic Local Authority. The services it provides to schools through its Local Service Agreements are well-regarded by schools. There is only limited opt-out of these services. None of the schools currently provides any SBM services to local primary schools, although collaborative working through families of schools is well established.
Your brief is to visit the schools, collect evidence about their current SBM arrangements and make proposals for the way forward. However, you have learned that the Finance Director in the Local Authority Education Department has already prepared costings for making the remaining SBMs redundant, to be replaced by a School Administrator in each of the schools and a new Service Level Agreement to provide financial management services centrally (peripatetic Finance Manager). This would produce a calculated saving of £66,000. You suspect that there is limited interest for such a proposal in the schools...
You have a meeting with the Director of Education tomorrow to talk through the brief in more detail and began to plan the project and negotiate your consultancy role. He has indicated that the initial consultancy might involve you in about 12 days’ work.