Tough choices ahead: meeting the challenges
Public sector spending is facing testing times as government grapples with the nation's finances. We look at ways of adapting to cope with the challenges
Disco music, Space Hoppers, Moulton cycles… the 1970s have been enjoying a revival in the last few years as older generations remember with nostalgia the decade that defined their youth.
However the nostalgic sheen does not extend to memories of the public spending cuts that marked the end of that decade. Indeed, for many veteran headteachers the era of the Sex Pistols coincided with the sacking of teachers, the mothballing of classrooms and acute shortages of books and equipment. “The worst period of my career,” comments one recently retired secondary head.
But could we be heading for another round of spending cuts on the same scale? Whichever government is in power come June 2010, the recession and the bank bail-out will force any Chancellor to curtail spending on all public services, even the hitherto protected shibboleths of education and health. The Treasury currently expects each government department to face annual cuts totalling around 9 per cent between 2011 and 2014.
What exactly that will mean for schools is still a matter of conjecture, with optimists certain that frontline spending will survive the chop, while others predict that the days of immunity for school budgets are over.
But everyone agrees that headteachers will face new challenges in an environment which will demand a completely different set of skills.
Heads will have to learn to work more collaboratively and to extract every ounce of efficiency from partnerships with other bodies, says Sir Paul Edwards, who is chief executive of the School Partnership Trust a federation of six schools across Leeds.
“Looking back over the last 12 years, it’s been a steady expansion and growth. You are now going to have to look towards collaboration in a way you didn’t need to when money was coming in.”
Although he does not envisage a cut in the core funding for schools, extra grants for inclusion, one to one tutoring and mentoring are vulnerable to the spending axe. “If you look at the government’s drivers – tackling deprivation, narrowing the gap between disadvantaged pupils and the rest. All these led to a whole host of targeted resources. These are the things that will disappear.” National Challenge schools and those in the inner cities will have accrued a much greater level of funding to tackle these issues, he adds. “They are going to find it hardest.”
Sir Paul, whose federation raises millions of pounds to fund many of its non-core activities, says that school leaders will have to become more entrepreneurial in the service of their schools. They will have to generate more income, cut their operating costs and trade their schools’ services. “It’s going to be difficult, shockingly difficult for some, to embrace this change. I look at what is happening across the country and I can count on one hand where people are doing this sort of thing – and I’m not using all my fingers.”
It’s little wonder that advice on saving money and cutting costs has now risen up the agenda for the education world.
The National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services is devoting part of its considerable resources to advising heads and school leaders on these issues. Toby Salt, deputy chief executive of the National College took the time to remind a recent conference of new heads that economic uncertainty would be a test of their mettle.
Although “Armageddon is not around the corner”, he says, “schools are going to have to live with fewer resources in the future. School leaders are going to have to be smarter about the way they use those resources. They are going to have to focus on efficiency and on effectiveness.”
Reducing costs and improving income generation could be the job of heads who had received suitable training, says Salt, but it would be better to secure the services of a school business manager. Although 90 per cent of secondary schools have a school business manager, he says, less than one in three primary schools do.
“Heads are often tempted to do all the work themselves but it’s the whole team that makes the difference. A good school business manager can save up to a third of a head’s time and around five per cent of non-salary related costs, which could be reinvested back in the school.”
The DCSF is also keen on schools using school business managers. But the department is even keener on federation as a way of cutting costs. Launching Let’s Talk Resources, a discussion paper on savings, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls said that the driving forces behind soft and hard federations are standards and school improvement. “But heads also tell me that federation is a powerful way to release resources through better procurement, shared support services and a shared approach to planning and leadership.”
Balls suggests that a combination of federation and better procurement could knock £2bn off the education bill.
Perhaps then it’s no coincidence then that the government’s spending watchdog, the Audit Commission, has also entered the fray, producing its own report, Valuable Lessons, on ways of cutting school spending. The report includes advice on more cost effective buying, staff deployment, collaboration with other schools and federation.
But there’s a sting in the tail.
The Audit Commission claims that there’s plenty of ‘fat’ to be cut from school spending. Valuable Lessons makes plain that the auditors regard more than a quarter of the £2 billion in school reserves as “excessive”, and estimates that if all schools were as efficient as the most prudent, they could save £110m from ICT budgets, £80m from cleaning and caretaking and £95m from catering.
The report also has a go at the near monopoly some companies hold over services for schools, including the fact that 70 per cent of school dinners come from just three companies.
The auditors have also queried the rise in numbers of teaching assistants. As a Treasury efficiency review investigates whether the 153,000 strong force of TAs is providing value for money, the research from the Institute of Education querying their impact on achievement will be more grist to the Audit Commission mill.
Audit Commission chair Michael O’ Higgins has suggested schools had “taken their eye off the ball” in the drive to raise standards, although he also had harsh words for local authorities, the DCSF and Ofsted for not taking seriously the issue of efficiency. In the next few years, he says, as the Treasury tightens spending departments’ belts, everyone in education will have to justify every penny they receive – or lose it. “If you don’t know what the evidence is, it’s hard to make the case for more resources.”
The Commission’s criticisms have stung the secondary headteachers’ union ACSL, into a spirited defence of holding money back for a rainy day, particularly, as ACSL secretary John Dunford points out, “that rainy day is on the way.” Ofsted retorted that value for money is one of its inspection criteria. “We already provide guidance and experts who can visit schools to advise on how to purchase goods and services more effectively and efficiently,” says a spokesman. But will all this advice, from Ofsted, the DCSF, the Audit Commission and the National College be enough to help school leaders adapt to a harsher climate?
Sir Paul Edwards, who is seen by many as the first of a new generation of “superheads” whose educational commitment is combined to sound business knowhow, says he’s hopeful. “School leaders are pragmatists. The way they have tackled the delivery of the academies programme, for example, shows that the spirit of social entrepreneurship is there. It just needs to be released.”
This article appears in the current issue of Navigate: the magazine. Click here to view the online version or email jenny.thornburn@navigategroup.co.uk to receive a hard copy.
