Government cost-cutters have ramped up their efficiency drive in schools, recommending more than £400 million of funding cuts last year.
And although schools are making more reductions based on their recommendations than ever, data shows they’re still only implementing a fraction of the advised savings.
It comes as schools face a financial triple-whammy that could force them to slash budgets further.
Julia Harnden, a funding specialist at the leaders’ union ASCL, said the rise in suggested and implemented cost savings “illustrate the financial pressure that schools are under’.
But “no amount of savings advice” could compensate for inadequate school funding.
Schools cutting more
DfE figures, obtained through the freedom of information act, show school resource management advisers (SRMAs) identified more than £400 million of “three-year cumulative savings opportunities” across 416 visits in 2023-24.
This averages £964,000 per school.
That figure is 37 per cent higher than 2022-23 levels (£701,418.44) and more than the £696,000 of savings for each school identified by SRMAs between 2018 and 2022.
The DfE stressed the figures “present a range of options for schools and trusts to consider and we wouldn’t expect the full amount to be realised”.
But our analysis suggests leaders are enacting more of these cuts. In 2023-24, they made £27,000 of reductions, on average, in the six months after their SRMA visit.
This compares to just over £25,000 12 months earlier and £17,000 in the first four years of the scheme, which launched in 2018.
Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of leaders’ union NAHT, warned that the the squeeze on school funding over the past decade has meant “many of the more obvious efficiencies and cost savings have already been implemented”.
Despite noting SRMAs could “provide helpful support”, he stressed there “can be a thin line between savings and cuts that impact children’s education”.
‘Give schools cash – or they’ll cut’
Last week, ministers admitted there was not enough headroom in budgets to cover pay rises next year, leaving leaders having to make further cuts.
Concerns were also raised that the government’s £1 billion package to cover increased national insurance contributions could fall short by as much as 35 per cent in some settings.
Meanwhile, pupil premium funding will rise by just 2.3 per cent next year, falling short of the 3.6 per cent expected rise in school costs.
Whiteman said the work of SRMAs was “no substitute for the government addressing schools’ serious concerns over funding”.
Harnden added that cash needed to be “made available…to help schools cover the increased costs they are facing”. This would “avoid the need to make cuts that will have a negative impact on the learning and wellbeing of children”.
SRMAs – normally school business leaders – started visiting schools in 2018 as part of an economy drive under then-academies minister Lord Agnew. At the time, the Institute of School Business Leaders (ISBL) was called in to support the programme.
However, previous government research found more than half of schools said the advisers did not find them new ways to save money.
Rise in SRMA-style advice
Our figures show that, since 2022, schools planned to make on average £235,000 of savings in the three years following their assessments. That represents 27 per cent of the efficiencies proposed over the period.
Despite losing out on a £7 million contract to supply the advisers in December, ISBL chiefs have said “most, if not all, [SRMAs] are people we’ve trained over the last 10 years”.
Bethan Cullen, the organisation’s deputy chief executive, said SRMAs supported “peers and other school leaders to achieve the optimal use of their resources”. They did this with “sustainably improving children’s outcomes at the centre of any recommendation”.
Since 2018, the advisers have broadened their reviews, sharing “knowledge gained through the over 2,000 deployments completed”.
“This has meant in recent years more learnings have been able to be applied from similar organisations to support the identification of potential efficiencies,” Cullen said.
“In addition, schools and trusts are independently seeking what could be characterised as SRMA-style advice around operational and financial sustainability given the current financial challenges.”
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
