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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

ESFA publishes revised academies financial handbook for 2020/21

The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has published the 2020 revised version of the Academies Financial Handbook; which comes into effect on 1 September 2020.

It contains greater clarity on the role that members should play within Trusts and an increased emphasis on the professionalisation of accounting officer and chief financial officer roles. There is also further requirements around whistleblowing, an area that NAHT has long been pressing the government on.

New provisions include:

a requirement for the trust to appoint a clerk to support the board of trustees
further guidance on the role of members including that they must not be employees of the Trust
Confirmation that both the accounting officer and the chief financial officer should be employees, and an increased emphasis on the need to consider if these role should require an official accountancy qualification.
a requirement that trusts must publish on their website, the number of employees whose benefits exceeded £100k, in 10k bandings
a requirement that trustees must agree the whistleblowing procedure and publish it on the trust’s website
further guidance on board and committee responsbilities for risk management, including a requirement around audit and risk committees.
removal of the option for internal audit to be performed by the external auditor
requirement that alll trusts complete the school resource management self-assessment tool

First published 24 June 2020

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