The SecEd Podcast: School budgets and finance

With soaring costs and real-terms school funding cuts, balancing the books has become a huge challenge. This episode offers practical advice for effective school financial planning and management.

We consider the funding situation on the ground and contemplate some worst-case scenarios for the year ahead. We discuss how we can approach the challenges we face, touching upon generating efficiencies, managing cashflow, benchmarking, financial planning metrics, costing development plans, and more.

We consider how business managers can work effectively with the headteacher and governors/trustees – including offering robust challenge – and the process of setting budgets for both MATs and standalone schools.