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Funding

 
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Schools are at breaking point as funding is not keeping up with the expenditure schools face. The government’s funding commitment for schools is not adequate and equates to a real-terms cut in education spending. The situation is critical for schools, so NAHT is campaigning to:

Lobby the government to provide sufficient funding for the education of all pupils 

 

  • Support the School Cuts campaign
  • Lobby for provision of accessible and available health, social care and other therapeutic services to support pupils' educational progress and attainment
  • Lobby for sufficient funding for the High Needs block
  • Lobby for sufficient funding to support pupils with SEND in all mainstream schools
  • Lobby for more funding for early years education; including specific funding to stabilise and protect the maintained nursery school sector
  • Support the Raise the Rate campaign to ensure sufficient funding for students in sixth form / FE / KS5 education
  • Maximise the funding for pupil premium for schools through auto enrolment
  • Press the government to provide appropriate support to schools for financial planning and resource management
  • Develop a better understanding of the unique challenges facing small schools and lobby the government to ensure their long-term sustainability
  • Lobby government to introduce the hard funding formula

Lobby to ensure that schools have sufficient funds to provide a safe environment for pupils and staff

  • Press for the phased removal of asbestos from the school estate
  • Lobby the DfE to secure sufficient capital funding and restoration of the school estate where required
  • Press the government to ensure that health and safety regulations maintain the highest standard of safety within schools
  • Lobby the DfE to support members to effectively manage the school estate

Updated Academies Financial Handbook published

Money management

The ESFA has published the updated version of the Academy Trust Handbook (also known as the Academies Financial Handbook), which comes into effect on 1 September 2021.​

NAHT continues to feed into the development of the Handbook each year to ensure that the experiences and concerns of members are reflected. This year's Handbook contains new information relating to trusts; existing obligations on safeguarding, health and safety, and estates management, cybercrime, and external reviews of governance.

New provisions include:

  • guidance on suitability checks for existing and future members
  • renaming the financial notice to improve (FNtl) to notice to improve (Ntl)
  • a requirement that trusts should have reserved places for parents in their governance structure
  • emphasising the process if appointing a senior executive leader as a trustee
  • replacing the term clerk with governance professional
  • reminding trusts of the requirement for Disclosure and Barring Service checks
  • clarification on the requirements around audit and finance committees, including a reminder that a member of the senior leadership team must not undertake internal scrutiny
  • further guidance on schemes of delegation, and which governance documents need to be available for public inspection
  • a new requirement for trusts to provide ESFA with authority to obtain third party information.
First published 22 June 2021

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