Managing efficiencies
Staff as you mean to go on! L
Hayley Dunn, School Business Manager at Windmill Primary School, shares her secrets for finding efficiencies in your staffing budget
ike many other School Business Managers, I have had to do a lot of work on cost and income analysis over the
past few months. I’ve been reviewing the current year, ensuring we have a budget that essentially: Is in a surplus – this isn’t as easy as it has been. Is realistic – it is no good setting a budget that you know isn’t going to be enough. Is sustainable – based on the information available, this is why workforce planning for the current and future years is key. I analyse trends in our spending and income
over a number of years. I then use this information helped me identify and understand the increases in employee costs across different types of staff.
income are all factors in why many schools are budget, you are storing up problems for the future! So Business Managers have to be prepared to ask
Nurture existing staff turnover and this can be a good thing, because new staff bring fresh ideas and experiences, and and resources into the professional development and wellbeing of current staff is essential. Create career guides linked to training options
progression, because no one goes straight from opportunities you can provide for staff to on specialisms/subjects, work shadowing, coaching and mentoring.
Think creatively! Start with a blank piece of paper and map
come back to pupils’ needs – are they being covered? Can it be done differently?
54 SUMMER 2017 FundEd
Hayley Dunn is School Business Manager at
Windmill Primary School in Telford, volunteer director of the OAKS Charity, ACCA qualified account, Fellow of the NASBM, avid Twitter
user: @ShropshireSBM, and blogs at
ShropshireSBM.org
Specialisms – do you have in-house expertise or could someone learn those skills? train other staff and provides in-house support. Can you share staff with other schools? For example, we have a part-time French language assistant who also works in two other schools. Consider the teaching allocation and Succession planning – are you currently growing and developing your own middle and senior leaders of the future? found out how it will be administered?
Make the most of staff skills Get to know your staff – especially support staff. Ours have a whole variety of skills and experience that we utilise, for example through after-school clubs for French, cooking and needlework, along with traditional booster and sports clubs. What have they done in the past? Do they have valuable experience/knowledge? outside of work? What are their aspirations?
Collaborate to accumulate! Involving staff in change management is useful, for example, if you are looking to change a policy, set up a working group with a cross-section of staff to utilise their knowledge and experience. Collaborating with other SBMs and staying
current is essential. We have started a small, local, peer-support group, whereby I regularly meet up with two other Business Managers
from similar schools to discuss policies, procedures and future developments. We are also seeing a rise in the number
of regional School Business Manager groups an invaluable resource whereby SBMs can
and collaboration opportunities.
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