How one Multi Academy Trust’s investment in back office systems has improved attainment
The CFO & COO INSIDER is a live, regular discussion about the academy finance topics that matter most: next session 29th Feb >
School Business Services Managing Director Leyla Tovey meets Christopher Dryer, Director of Finance and Operations at St Bartholomew’s CE Multi Academy Trust in Wolverhampton.
"Everything we do behind the scenes is about trying to improve outcomes for our children."
When assessing academy administration, it’s very easy to underestimate or even ignore the link between back office systems and the classroom. The connection might on a cursory glance seem remote.
But that’s clearly not the case at St Bartholomew’s CE Multi Academy Trust in the West Midlands, where Director of Finance and Operations Chris Dryer sees these systems as an intrinsic part of the growing trust’s mission to deliver the very best education and life chances for children.
St Bart’s, which consists of nine faith and non-faith primary schools in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire and Dudley, has seen a steady expansion over the past five years.
A Chartered Accountant, Chris joined the trust after a successful corporate career. He admits he fell into education and academy finance, but it quickly became a passion. “I’m not on the frontline, but everything that we do behind the scenes is all about trying to improve the outcomes and life chances of our children,” he says. “That just resonated a lot more with me than working in sectors where profit was the most important thing. I think I found a niche that I really enjoy.”
The trust consisted of just four schools when Chris joined in 2018 and since that time it has steadily expanded. Another school will become part of the trust soon taking it to double figures and longer term expansion plans will see St Bart’s grow to 15 or even 20 schools in the next few years.
That steady expansion depends on those back-office systems. With aspirations to expand the trust and welcome in like-minded schools Chris and his team were faced with a challenge: how could the trust grow in a sustainable way that met its statutory responsibilities in a climate of increasing financial pressures? Chris and his team carried out an assessment and agreed that finance systems were the starting point.
“With money getting tighter it was very much about how we ensure that we are achieving value for money as we go through periods of growth and all the additional demands and complications that come with that growth,” he explains. “Finance was quickly identified as the starting point because if we get those finance systems right it filters down to everything else.”
Up to that point each trust school did their own finance and associated admin work. The first move was to centralise these school finance functions to create efficiencies and consistency across the trust. “We knew that if we were to get those systems in place early doors then we could actually build on those as we grew,” Chris says.
The seemingly simple act of moving the trust to one single bank account had far reaching benefits. “We moved all the income and expenditure out of the individual school accounts which cut down on the hours it took to process the transactions. It also meant that month-end reports and consolidation was far more straightforward,” Chris explains. “And as we took on more schools we had extra capacity to deal with that growth rather than having to appoint additional staff.”
The move to centralise finances wasn’t about removing autonomy but instead giving leaders and teachers the capacity to focus on what they do best: teaching and learning. “When we were designing our systems, we always had that in mind,” says Chris. “It’s not about removing autonomy or playing Big Brother or anything like that. It's about removing that administrative burden. Each school is still kept informed and aware of what's going on, but now they're able to focus their time on their teaching and learning and each school’s admin staff will be more able to provide greater support to the headteacher on issues such as attendance.”
Those back-office systems are still developing and there are exciting plans in store, says Chris. “We want to look at automation with invoices because we're still manually entering the purchase invoices,” he explains. “I know that invoice automation is now being widely adopted in the corporate world and it makes sense. Automation can mean that we can deal with this time-consuming area of work at a lower cost than if we increase staffing hours or bring in additional capacity.”
Chris sees the central back office team at St Bart’s as having two key responsibilities: ensuring the trust meets compliance and regulation requirements and supporting each trust school with expert advice and capacity.
That support function is likely to play an important part in the trust’s future when it comes to teaching and learning as well. Technology can always help with streamlining admin and data heavy processes and it can also help the schools collaborate more closely on areas such as curriculum planning.
“We do allow schools to develop their own curriculums based on their contexts – they need that flexibility – but they should be able to identify areas where they can work together,” says Chris. “It makes sense for subject leaders to collaborate rather than work separately so we are looking at ways in which technology can facilitate that. That’s a big infrastructure project which, together with plans for every pupil to have their own device, will require us to build our networking capabilities. It’s an exciting prospect.”
It’s clear that St Bart’s is a trust that’s come a long way and is heading in a very positive direction, helped in many ways by big changes in the back office.
“I think the systems that we put in place on finances is probably what I'm most proud of, because they have helped us to move towards a position of strong financial health,” Chris says. “It’s given us the capacity, time, and the accuracy of information to be able to make informed decisions and make the changes needed to take on that growth.”
He adds: “It's easy to think that the children in the classroom and the back office operational element are very separate, but they're not at all.
“It's actually very easy to join that thread between the two and show how improvements to our processes such as finance and payroll and the knock-on impact this has on our resources. Ultimately, it has had a clear impact on outcomes for children and our future generation which is why we work in education.”
Next CFO & COO INSIDER - for your MAT finance CPD
Laying a Foundation for Growth
Thursday 29th February, 10:00-10:40
The CFO & COO INSIDER is a live, regular discussion about the trust finance topics that matter most. In this session Leyla Tovey (Managing Director at SBS) and Christopher Dryer (Director of Finance & Operations, St Bartholomew's CE Multi Academy Trust) will explore the benefits of ensuring scalable systems and processes are in place prior to MAT growth.
