Welcome!

Thank you for visiting the School Business Services blog for the first time. This post comes from Becky Hall, Head of Marketing, to introduce who we are and why we have started this blog. SBS History School Business Services Ltd (SBS) was founded in December 2007 and is jointly owned by two entrepreneurs, Tina Brown and Mark Tadman, both of whom have many years of experience in delivering business services into the education sector. SBS began with an initial workforce of approximately 20 people providing Finance, MIS & ICT services into schools. By the end of our first year of trading, we employed just over 30 staff and serviced some 80 schools across London and the South West. Since then, the majority of our business has derived from word of mouth referral, which has resulted from the excellent reputation that we have for our professionalism, personalised approach and bespoke service offerings. Our rapid expansion has seen us grow to now employ over 70 staff and open offices in Poole, Milton Keynes and Barnsley, which has enabled us to provide a full range of support services to schools across the UK. The majority of our teams are field based as they spend most of their time on school site, either working on short term projects or longer term service commitments. Our dedicated service helpdesks are situated in our offices, along with our own internal departments. Why this blog? I am a huge fan of Twitter, so most of my activity with Headteachers, School Business Managers, Bursars, Finance Managers, ICT Managers and SIMS Managers takes place via our company profile. Our Director of Finance & Business, Iain Maris, asked me for the best way to publish timely news releases of specific financial information for academies without having to wait for our termly customer newsletter. The obvious choice was a blog, with the added bonus that anyone can subscribe to these posts! Future posts will come from the Finance & Business Team, predominantly via our specialist Finance Consultant, Stephen Dolman, but also occasional pearls of wisdom from Iain himself, with his extensive experience of converting academies and setting up free schools. If there is a particular topic you would like us to tackle, or if you have any burning questions you would like to ask, please join in by commenting on a post, or emailing financehelpdesk@schoolbusinessservices.co.uk with a subject of "Burning Blog Question".