Over the last 10 years, schools have gained greater independence and funding is increasingly being devolved to school level. This means schools have greater self-governance over their budgets and resources.
However, with independence comes responsibility and accountability, and it is increasingly evident that schools need to employ or train individuals to manage business aspects of the school such as resources, finances, risk management and school buildings/facilities. Although the number of support staff is growing rapidly and the Bursar Development Programme has been highly successful, school business manager (SBM) penetration in primary schools is still low and there remains some confusion around the title school business manager (SBM), and the responsibilities undertaken within the role. Even where SBMs are in place, they are often not on senior leadership teams and their role remains tightly focused around finance and premises.
Studies conducted by government-appointed consultancies (PwC 2001 and McKinsey 2007) have identified significant gaps within senior business management support for headteachers and teachers. This being the case, there is a further opportunity to devolve responsibilities, making more effective use of resources and providing headteachers with more time to focus on leading learning and teaching.
Currently, nearly all primary headteachers and many secondary headteachers receive only basic business support (eg transactional finance, operational facilities management). This basic support is being delivered by a combination of SBMs and administrative roles. While some secondary headteachers are currently benefiting from leadership support provided by the top cadre of SBMs, very few heads have strategic support on business management issues.
The introduction of more highly-skilled school business management personnel should increase leadership capacity and enable primary school headteachers to focus more on leading learning and teaching. This should help to improve attainment and progress and make more effective use of resources. It also has the potential to make the headteacher role more attractive and contribute positively to wider solutions to leadership succession.
These proposed senior business management roles are applicable to all schools but specific needs will differ across the range of settings. In primary schools, where penetration is low (less than 50 per cent currently have a school business manager) there are a number of options for accessing higher-level business support. Enhanced business support will have a very significant impact on school effectiveness. It is at the very least cost-neutral and should free up funds for reinvestment in teaching and learning.
Around a third of headteacher time could be freed up to allow increased headteacher focus on strategic leadership, with headteachers of small primary schools particularly likely to benefit. In addition, around five per cent of the resources of each school could be saved and reinvested.
In progressing this work, the College is proposing to build on the undoubted success of the current certificate and diploma level courses by: