Hayley Dunn says the government’s new school resource management (SRM) strategy doesn’t go far enough to recognise the vital role of school business leaders.

Strategy falls short

The Department for Education’s Schools Resource Management Summit 2022 brought together stakeholders and practitioners, including many schools resource management advisers, to officially launch and discuss the department’s approach to school resource management, supported by a new policy paper. 

The new School Resource Management: Building a stronger system strategy provides details of various initiatives, and some but not enough, recognition of the vital role played by school business leaders. 

As part of the development of the new strategy, the DfE reviewed the Funding Policy Unit’s school business professional strategy, which was focused on skills, status and supply. The revised and renamed SRM strategy now focuses on culture, capacity and capability. 

And although we welcome the strategy, which sets an expectation for business knowledge to be at the centre of leadership decision making, we think it should have gone further in setting an expectation for equitable pay and conditions for business leaders. 

What is the strategy timeline? 

The strategy was launched in June 2022 and will be reviewed by June 2027. Through the initiatives and offers within the strategy, the DfE aims to achieve efficiencies of £1 billion. 

What do the proposals cover? 

The strategy sets out how the DfE will work with schools and academy trusts, focusing on school resource management; development and deployment of the workforce; and procurement of non-staff expenditure – such as purchasing costs, estate management, digital technology and benchmarking data. The core part of the strategy is split into the following three strands:

1. supporting professionals to achieve effective school resource management
2. effectiveness and efficiency in the school workforce
3. supporting schools and academy trusts to get the best value and impact from non-staff spend 

Initiatives within the strategy include provision of bursary funding for a second cohort of aspiring chief financial officers (CFOs); training for boards; expansion of the school resource management adviser (SRMA) programme; research into how CFOs and chief operating officers (COOs) work in strong trusts at executive and leadership level; supporting the Institute of School Business Leadership’s (ISBL’s) refresh of professional standards; an offer of training and guidance on integrated curriculum and financial planning (ICFP); and seeking opportunities to streamline processes. 

The strategy has sought to bring together a number of initiatives and statements of intention linked to possible future activities, including research, developing new guidance and consulting with ASCL on the development of induction resources for new entrants to the profession. 

What do the proposals not cover? 

The strategy covers resource management topics on a range of roles, including roles linked to business leadership, governance and senior leadership, while also covering specific initiatives targeting business leaders. 

However, we think it was a missed opportunity by the DfE not to recognise and address the specific issues facing business leaders. We think the DfE should have written two separate policy papers, one for school resource management and one for school business leaders, with the latter outlining initiatives to address the challenges concerning business leaders’ pay, conditions, recruitment and retention, recognition, professional development and wellbeing. 

And we were extremely disappointed to see that the DfE did not take this opportunity to raise the profile of business leaders’ pay and conditions, especially as this had been discussed on many occasions in the lead up to the publication. 

ASCL has a long history of lobbying the government on the issue of business leaders’ pay and conditions, including most recently when we shared our concerns, on behalf of members, with the Minister for the School System, Baroness Barran MBE, at our Conference for Business Leaders in June. And we are also lobbying the government to develop a contextualised workload reduction tool for business leaders to supplement the DfE resources developed for teachers. 

How can you share your views? 

We welcome your views on any of the strands in the strategy. We would like to know if and how they work in your specific organisational structure and would like to know if the strategy will support you to address your setting’s resource needs. 

We would particularly like to hear from those who have had recent visits from school resource management advisers, and whether they have been helpful and supportive. 

You can share your views by emailing TellUs@ascl.org.uk using ‘ Resource management’ in the subject line. 

FURTHER INFO: 

Read the policy paper, School Resource Management: Building a stronger system, at www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-excellentschool-resource-management

Hayley Dunn
ASCL Business Leadership Specialist
@ShropshireSBM 

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