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FMiS reference materials

Financial Management in SchoolsFinancial management > Reference

This online resource is designed to provide an easy reference guide to a range of resources available to support financial management in schools. Many of the documents included can be downloaded from the internet; links have been referenced. Several of the publications are from the DfES, including the Financial Management Standard and Toolkit, which was developed in association with the Institute of Public Finance (IPF).

Supporting the toolkit is a set of standards, which can be found in the standard section of this library. These enable schools to assess the soundness and effectiveness of their own financial systems and identify what they need to do to improve them. They enable schools to link through to documents in the toolkit that will be of most use to their particular situation. The best way to use these resources is to go through the standards evaluation tool first and then access those documents from the toolkit that deal with any areas of comparative weakness.

The reference library is designed for headteachers and other senior leaders in schools , governors, particularly those on finance committees , and bursars, including school finance officers, school accounting officers and financial directors .

Recovery planning

Recovery planning is generally a process undertaken by the school and the LEA. It is inevitably tailored to the school’s specific circumstances and is, therefore, largely a face-to-face process with few written support materials. Below are some materials that give guidance on the process and examples of what the output may look like. Recovery planning is essentially good financial management, but under pressure, so many of the materials in the preparing and delivering to a budget section will also be of relevance.

Since this section focuses more on the detail of preparing and managing school finances, it is mainly aimed at the senior leadership team and at those with more direct responsibility for managing the school budget.

TITLE	DESCRIPTION	WHO
A process for school budget recovery Source: John Harrington	A brief document outlining steps used with a number of schools to work through budget problems and develop a recovery plan.
LEA recovery plan letter Source: Hertfordshire LEA	Template of the letter sent to schools outlining the requirements for a recovery plan.
LEA recovery plan letter II Source: Hertfordshire LEA	Template of the letter sent to schools confirming next steps following the presentation of the recovery plan.
Primary school recovery plan Source: Anonymous	Sample of a primary school recovery plan with attached spreadsheet.
Secondary school recovery plan Source: Anonymous	Sample of a secondary school recovery plan with attached spreadsheet.
Income and expenditure checklist – primary schools Source: FMiS team	Checklist for schools looking to evaluate and review their expenditure and optimise their income. It sets out the questions to consider under each of the headings used in Consistent Financial Reporting. The checklist is designed to generate thoughts and ideas.
Income and expenditure checklist – secondary schools Source: FMiS team	Checklist for schools looking to evaluate and review their expenditure and optimise their income. It sets out the questions to consider under each of the headings used in Consistent Financial Reporting. The checklist is designed to generate thoughts and ideas.
Income and expenditure checklist – special schools Source: FMiS team	Checklist for schools looking to evaluate and review their expenditure and optimise their income. It sets out the questions to consider under each of the headings used in Consistent Financial Reporting. The checklist is designed to generate thoughts and ideas.
Recovery planning guide Source: KPMG	Checklist used by KPMG for working with schools on identifying options for a financial recovery plan to regain balance from a deficit position.

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