SCHOOL FUNDING

No political party is ever going to suggest cuts, argues

BESA chief Ray Barker,

but beware of the word ‘efficiencies’

W

HAT A strange time! Never has there been so much radical change in education – the curriculum, assessment, funding – and yet never has there been so much uncertainty with an election looming.

What are schools to do? Push ahead with exciting

new changes (some would say long overdue), or wait and see what happens? It is not always clear to see what is on the horizon.

Many of the political parties are making the same kinds of statements in this election, but a few things are firm. The Treasury states that for 2010/11, the huge

amount of £89.2 billion has been allocated for education and training. Never has there been that amount of money in the system. It is clear that money will always be there for education – no party is going to suggest a “cut”, (indeed Ed Balls, Labour’s schools spokesman, committed his party to increasing spending at the recent union conferences), but beware of the word “efficiencies”. Education is still a real priority – how else but

through education and 21st century skills are we to create a generation who can get us out of this situation? The funding is in place to ensure that buildings, staff and resources are purchased to make this happen – and so should be spent. However, it is clear that some money is going to have to be saved somewhere from the public purse to help out with the debt crisis. The recent statement by Mr Balls confirmed that a

Labour government would continue to take forward the Building Schools for the Future programme to rebuild or refurbish all secondary schools and it backed a system run locally by schools and councils, not dictated

by central government. Strangely enough, this is in the Conservative manifesto as well (“the era of big government has run its course...”). More interestingly, there is to be a consultation

on the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), to lay the foundations for how schools should be funded in the future with a commitment to maintain the Minimum Funding Guarantee, providing the stability and certainty that schools need to effectively plan ahead. Mr Balls outlines plans for a local Pupil Premium, where extra deprivation money follows the poorest pupils, based on a system decided and distributed locally. You will also find something similar in the Conservative manifesto. In the Pre-Budget Report in November the chancellor

set out plans for the schools system to see a real-terms increase of 0.7 per cent combined with an expectation that schools should make efficiency savings of 0.9 per cent – equal to more than £1 billion over 2011/12 and 2012/13. The 0.7 per cent real-terms increase for 2011/13,

which equates to 2.7 per cent in cash terms at current inflation, will provide for increases of 2.1 per cent cash in per-pupil funding in 2011/13 after taking account of rising pupil numbers. This is on top of the 4.3 per cent per-pupil increase in 2010/11. But what of “efficiencies” – the cuts in educational

Feeling the squeeze?

Melanie Teal

on getting the most from your purchasing

AS WE enter into a new financial year for schools, many will find the resource budget smaller than previous years. The resource budget often covers a multitude of expenditures and can also be hit by surprises, such as an unexpected hefty fuel bill after a cold winter. Given this, it is often down to clever purchasing and planning to secure budget savings and make set budgets go further. Making sure you get value for money is one good

way of stretching the resource budget. This year we have seen different education suppliers extend their budget ranges to ensure secondary schools have easy access to a range of essential supplies. Budget ranges can make a difference to how much you spend, but there is also an opportunity to look more strategically at how you are purchasing. One question to ask is can I change habits to make

a difference? In recent years, there has been increased focus on how schools and colleges buy. In many cases, this has resulted in more suppliers being used as schools have sought the lowest price for specific types of goods. The downside of this is a corresponding increase

in the administrative impact of managing suppliers. So, finding a supplier who is competitively priced across a comprehensive range of products can help schools consolidate orders as well as contributing positively to the environment. The second area to look at is how your school

shares information about suppliers. Sharing knowledge is a good way of staying on top of the game and being able to easily compare suppliers and get competitive quotes, as well as draw on different pockets of expertise across the school. For larger commitments, it is always good to

involve third parties; local authorities can often help and most governing bodies will have members with commercial experience, so they can help with negotiation and drawing up more complex contracts.

If you are dealing with lots of different suppliers

it is also important to get whole-school support as often it is the little things that can make a difference. Having a clear policy to ensure three different quotes are secured for spend above a certain threshold, usually £500, can provide a powerful negotiation tool with suppliers and can ensure the best possible price. For school-wide events and different curriculum

weeks, always try to encourage staff to plan in advance so you get the right products at a good price. There are suppliers out there who can help with

all aspects of a school’s day-to-day curriculum and maintenance needs. Many of these are happy to look at a school’s overall spending requirements and tailor an offer for them. This one-off negotiation can then free up staff to get on with their vital role of teaching the children or managing the school. In some cases the negotiation can be done more centrally and it is always worth double-checking what your local authority can offer. Take heart that in today’s environment it is not

just school budgets that are under pressure, suppliers want your business and it is always worth having the confidence to ask for more.

• Melanie Teal is chief executive of The Consortium, a national procurement and fulfilment business. Visit www.theconsortium.co.uk

Getting the most from suppliers

• It should not be about buying the cheapest. With high-use items they need to stand the test of time so it is important to weigh up value and hard-wearing factors as well as asking suppliers to provide the whole-life cost of bigger spend items. This works both ways, buying a premium product when a budget one will do is just as wasteful as buying a poor quality product when a better one is needed. • Look to build relationships with a small number of good suppliers and give staff clear guidance on whom to use for what. This will speed up the buying process and reduce administrative complexity. • Read the small print and research what all the different companies offer. Check for hidden charges on small orders, next-day deliver or when returning goods. • Take advantage of, and if they are not offered seek out, discounts. Particularly if you can take deliveries in larger quantities.

QUALITY TREE-FREE EXERCISE BOOKS AT 23p

The Consortium, has taken one of the UK’s most used paper items – the school exercise book – and indentified a sustainable tree-free alternative made entirely of sugar cane waste.

For every kilo of traditional paper produced, 98 kilos of other resources is needed, let alone the 786 million trees needed to keep the world in paper for a year, or the forest ecosystems that are destroyed.

Melanie Teal, Chief Executive of The Consortium says: “Sugarcane re- grows from the roots, so the plant lasts for many cycles. It’s a really sustainable solution.”

The BE Books are priced from 23p each, costing the same as The Consortium’s conventional paper books.

“It costs no more to buy this exceptional standard,

eco-friendly product,” says Melanie Teal. “The Consortium is first to source this product and with sustainability becoming increasingly important in the classroom, we think that once schools have tried these exercise books, there will be no going back.”

www.theconsortium.co.uk/Be-Books

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SecEd • April 22 2010

20/4/10 11:46:42

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spending expected to be made by schools by both political parties? Mr Balls said: “The government has already committed to finding savings of £500 million in 2011/13, seven per cent of non-protected spending by 2012/13.” This will happen in three ways: making efficiencies

in our Non-Departmental Public Bodies (Becta loses £40 million over two years); making savings on bursaries for initial teacher training; and ending start-up funding for extended services, now that 95 per cent of schools are offering breakfast and after-school activities, with all expected to be by the end of the year. So it seems that core funding is not to be cut, but

watch out for all those smaller “grants” that have appeared in schools over the years to make initiatives happen. These look as if they will slowly disappear. This leaves many schools in an awkward situation; they will have recruited staff and allocated space and time to make initiatives happen. They will now have to fund these out of their core budget, so reducing the amount that they really have to spend. There has always been a fixation with saving money

through procurement. This is a sensible idea if it does not take away from schools their freedom to choose the right materials and resources to deal with the problems of their particular institutions. The British Educational

Suppliers Association (BESA) has always supported the “choice and diversity” debate. You know your pupils best; you know what you need to deliver the objectives of your school development plan. You should be able to choose. This is why BESA developed events such as BETT and the Education Show – to make educators aware of what is out there and what is best value. So, we now can expect to have £650 million from

greater use of collaborative procurement in schools. The government will provide support to schools through its procurement programme, enabling schools to use secure electronic procurement through the Educational Procurement Centre. However, schools need to be aware of the problems

with centralised procurement, and remember that “best- value” does not always equate to “cheapest price”. As we have all experienced, bustling classrooms require good quality resources to stand the test of time. With the election date fixed for May 6, the time has

come to closely follow what each party is proposing for education to see what the next era will bring – and how we can expect it to change the classrooms of tomorrow.

SecEd

• Ray Barker is director of the British Educational Suppliers Association. Visit www.besa.org.uk

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