Your Summary Notes: CFO & COO INSIDER - Benchmarking & Curriculum-Led Budgeting
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On December 7th we delivered the latest CFO & COO INSIDER - a live, regular discussion about the trust finance topics that matter most.
In ‘Benchmarking & Curriculum-Led Budgeting' Leyla was joined by Richard Page (Director of Operations and Digital at SBS), Benedicte Yue (CFO at River Learning Trust) and Mark Hancock (Data Director at River Learning Trust) to discuss key benchmarks, adjustments and limitations to curriculum-led budgeting. We also looked at River Learning Trust's approach and how it uses metrics in practice to inform decisions.
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Key benchmarks, adjustments, limitations and more...
9 questions from the attendee chat
Thanks to those who asked questions and we hope this is useful insight for all.
1. Do you use any benchmarks for the deployment of teaching assistants? For example, compared to high needs funding or % of pupils with EHCP or SEN but no EHCP?
The benchmark for teaching assistants is about 10-12% of income in a secondary school and 15-18% of income in a primary school.
Whilst we tend to be close to that figure in secondary schools, our actual spend on TAs in primary schools has increased significantly in recent years due to a significant influx of pupils with special needs where you also need to consider the SEN funding received covering part of the cost. To assess the extent of the SEN funding shortfall, we tend to add Notional SEN + Top up less eligible SEN support costs (largely TAs).
Another measure of the level of TAs is the Pupil to Adult Ratio (between 10 and 12 generally). Finally on SEN, it is often useful to look at %EHCP and %SEN. A high SEN % and low EHCP % could indicate that there is an issue to convert SEN into EHCPs and that there may be potential to put some EHCPs applications through. There can't be benchmarks for SEN support as all the needs are different. We try to limit 1:1 TAs where possible but in most cases, we just need more funding!
2. For income, are you just using GAG or total income as lettings etc can make big difference to the analysis?
We use the total income and I agree that when the other income is significant, it can distort your benchmarks. It will show lower teaching costs but may show higher energy or premises costs for example if you have significant lettings. The key is to be able to explain why your metrics deviate from the benchmark. To look at teaching staff deployment, you may want to exclude lettings from income but on the other hand, the surplus from this extra income is often reinvested to enhance the educational offer.
3. We want to monitor and forecast pupil numbers. Most of the income that is linked to pupil numbers should be based on the October census of the previous year. However, SBS links some elements of income to the present year pupil numbers. Just want to know your thoughts and what basis is used for income budgeting.
To work on staff deployment, you need to look at pupils currently in the school to assess how many teachers you want to cover your current classes and teaching periods. So for all the staffing metrics and other costs metrics, I would probably find it more relevant to use the current pupil numbers.
If you are looking at funding/pupil, you need to use the pupils in the funding letter which are the previous year census in most cases except for growing schools.
4. Is this the DfE ICFP tool or bespoke to RTL?
This is the RLT Tool on Google Sheets which can be shared on request. Please contact mhancock@riverlearningtrust.org. There are many other excellent tools available. We are working with SBS to incorporate some of those features in the SBS Budgets software. Whilst most schools have some kind of staff planning in place, the strength of the RLT tool is that it combines the staffing planning with the budget and salary information from SBS, where two reports are imported.
5. How have you found the engagement from senior leaders in schools to be able to pull this data together?
We import the staffing reports from SBS and work with either the curriculum lead or timetabler to ensure that the data is aligned with the staffing plans/timetables.
The engagement is excellent. In a period of significant financial pressures, school leaders need to understand the cost and impact of changes in their staffing allocation. We are not here to dictate what they should be doing but to give them tools to inform their decisions. Knowing what options are available and what financial impact this is having, they can then assess with their governors what they want to prioritise based on risk and deliverability.
ICFP has significantly enhanced our conversation with school leaders and I believe is building that bridge between finance and education making a clear link between budgets and what's happening in the classroom.
6. Do you ensure that there is a consistent teaching load across all schools in the MAT i.e. 45/50 or 44/50 or does it vary?
No, we don't and there is considerable variation depending on context and improvement needs. Most schools are 45/50, however there are exceptions: for example one of our schools has a lower load as we've invested time to develop leadership and pedagogy in order to support improvement.
This also reflects our culture, where individual schools have autonomy to lead as best fits their local situation - so if things are going well, then the local leadership team has more latitude.
7. As a primary-only MAT do you find ICFP data more useful for secondary rather than primary?
The main benefit of ICFP is to optimise the staffing allocation and as such it works in all types and phases of school. In large structures like secondary schools with a complex mix of options and groups, it is essential. However, we also use some key metrics in primary. The class structure is key in primary schools. You also need to look at the contact ratio, PPA time, leadership costs and how much time they are teaching. Plus TLRs, average teacher costs, cost of catering, nursery, wraparound case vs income, cost of SEN support and TA deployment, etc...
8. Can I ask what is Mark's view of the 0.78 TCR benchmark? This used to be very much an aspirational target in the ASCL ICFP but seems to have become a benchmark in recent times.
ASCL has advocated 0.78 as an aspirational target on the basis that it represents approximately 10% of all teacher time in planning and preparation, 10% in management activity and allows 2% leeway.In practice, it is difficult to achieve and I believe that it's been reduced to 0.76 for secondary schools with the introduction of ECT2 time. There's also the very careful balance of recruitment, retention and staff wellbeing: whilst you could save costs by increasing contact ratio, getting these three areas wrong can be very expensive.
9. When calculating contact ratios, what FTE do you apply to trainee teachers that can only have a limited timetable? Using full FTE can dilute the contact ratio.
I'd put them in as full time - whilst Teach First colleagues have a much lower load, they also have a lower salary that will be reflected in other benchmarks. If you have lots of these colleagues, then this is part of the context as to why the contact ratio may be lower. If you wanted to, it would be very quick to change the FTE of these colleagues to reflect their teaching load and see how much that changes the contact ratio.
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