NAHT's latest report, School business leadership in crisis? Making school business leadership sustainable, finds that school business leadership is on the edge – with urgent and coordinated action required to ensure sufficient school business leaders for now and in the future.
(This report was launched at an online member-only town hall meeting on Wednesday 12 January 2022, before being shared with MPs at a face-to-face parliamentary briefing on Wednesday 2 February 2022.)
Before the pandemic hit, it was clear that school business leaders (SBLs) were struggling with an unsustainable workload and an ever-increasing remit, set against a backdrop of low pay and an undervalued workforce.
Our latest research finds that the government's actions over the last two years have made an already bad situation even worse, leaving many school business professionals feeling mistreated, distrusted and unsupported. They are under more pressure than ever before which is in turn negatively impacting their well-being.
The government should learn from previous mistakes, made with other parts of the workforce, and act now to reset the agenda. It needs to properly recognise and reward all who work in education, and ensure that the critical role that school leaders, in all their various guises, play is appropriately recognised and valued.
In this report, NAHT identifies the urgent challenges that must be tackled to create the conditions for school business leaders to thrive, so that their schools and pupils can flourish too. As ever, NAHT pledges to play its part in leading that transformation.
You can find out more about our wider campaign, and read our comparable report for other school leadership roles, here.
Join our campaign
To fix the school leadership crisis we need as many people as possible to get involved in our campaign.
Please use this letter-writing tool to write to your MP, and tell them about the growing pay, well-being and workload pressures you and your colleagues are currently experiencing. There is an example template included within this tool – this is only intended to provide a suggestion outline and some possible phrasing that might be helpful. It is not intended to be specific and members are welcome to make edits to the form to reflect their personal circumstances.