School resource management: checklist
Help with planning school finances and resources – tools and advice from the Department for Education (DfE).
Applies to England
Use these tools to help you plan school budgets, benchmark finances and manage resources.
1. Check how efficient your school is
Get a quick snapshot of how efficient your school is. (‘Efficient’ here means how well you use your resources to improve pupil progress.)
Check how efficient your school is.
2. Compare with other schools (financial benchmarking)
Schools should:
- benchmark their spending and staffing
- report their findings to the governing body
Use the schools financial benchmarking service to compare spending, income and staffing.
3. Checks for financial planning
Important checks to make to see if your school is doing a good job of planning and managing resources and finances. The checklist is aimed at governors but is useful for everyone.
School resource management: top 10 planning checks for governors.
4. Plan your workforce
Advice to help schools plan how to use staff effectively and plan future staffing structures. This includes a simple curriculum planning tool.
Use the workforce and curriculum planning guidance.
5. Find a framework (DfE-approved service)
Find quality-checked suppliers for the things your school buys regularly. This service is updated regularly and replaces deals for schools.
Find a DfE-approved framework for your school.
6. Report to your local authority (for maintained schools)
Local-authority-maintained schools must submit the schools financial value standard assurance (SVFS) form to their local authority every year.
7. Get financial advice
Some schools may want outside help to review their finances, identify issues and fix problems.
How to get financial advice for your school.
8. School resource management: training and peer support
You can get lots of help and advice about planning and managing school finances:
- find training and support from sector organisations
- read case studies from schools
See all DfE information about school resource management.
Updates to this page
Last updated 9 November 2018 + show all updates
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Updated the link in section 2.
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First published.