Financial Planning for Schools

Case Study: Financial Planning in Hertfordshire Schools

Practitioners (rather than software experts) have designed Financial Planning for Schools so that the educationalists can understand the school's short, medium and long term financial position.

The software assists schools with the DfES 'Dedicated Schools Budget'.

The software is excellent for performing 'sensitivity analysis' to examine the financial implications of many different scenarios, including Teaching staff and Support staff salary scales to quickly and reliably calculate salary costs.

All schools using the software are able to develop and plan their annual budgets, prepare reports for governors and the School Management Team, analyse the implications of their School Development Planning (SDP) and calculate Teacher and Learning Responsibilities (TLR) scales including impact of cash protection. 

Key benefits

• Can be used consistently well in all sizes of schools.
• No IT issues - software is based on MS Excel.
• Numerous files can be saved enabling endless "what if" scenarios.
• Robust platform.
• Excellent training and support available - tailored to individual LEAs and Schools.
• Software is continually developed to ensure we factor in latest educational policy and procedural changes (eg. TLR calculator).
•  The software is stand alone.

Key Reports

• Summary Income & Expenditure Projection Report - numerical report showing bottom line impact of any change including staffing levels, salary levels, etc.
• Pupil/Teacher Ratio - with ability to exclude non teaching staff (eg. Headteachers). A very good tool enabling the analysis of trends over 5 year period.
• Income Vs Expenditure Comparison - Summary chart showing 5 year projection based on data input - very clear and concise - gets attention of non finance professionals.
• Expenditure Analysis - series of pie charts showing share of expenditure as a percentage of delegated budget - excellent visual representation with high impact.
  

Easy to Use

• The model is straightforward to use and does not require any financial modelling expertise.
• The user is guided through a series of worksheets to build up a comprehensive picture of the schools income and expenditure.
• These worksheets contain a large number of built in formulae, ensuring maximum output from minimum input including LEA and DfES funding Formulae and Teaching and Support Staff pay calculators.

Comprehensive Reporting

• Entries made in the income and expenditure sections feed through to produce many financial reports including CFR, Standards Fund Reports and In year and Cumulative Surplus/Deficit.
• The series of graphs and charts produced means that trends can be highlighted over the 5 year period including Pupil Projections, Teacher/Pupil ratios and detailed Staffing Analysis.
• Designed to help communicate data in an easy to understand, user friendly format, suitable for Bursars, Senior Management Teams, Governors and other key Stakeholders.

Easy to Manipulate

• Data can quickly and easily be manipulated to examine various scenarios in financial terms. The immediate financial impact of any change in the data is shown in a range of graphs and charts.

Helps to avoid costly mistakes

• Salary calculators for teaching and support staff are included, enabling accurate and detailed figures to be produced in a fraction of the time this task usually takes.
• The software is pre-populated with each individual school's specific Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU) calculations and Section 52 details for the first year, which is inflated for subsequent years using the most up to date information available.

• Microsoft® Windows® 98 or NT/ME/2000/XP
  and Office 2000/XP2003+
• 64 MB RAM or greater
• SVGA monitor
• Minimum 60MB hard disk space
• CD ROM drive

Financial Planning for Schools can be run as a single user application in either stand alone or networked environments