School budget

[Fangsalot89]

Does anyone know if you can request to see a breakdown of the school budget by department? It’s a particular dept I’m actually interested in.
The school website doesn’t show this and I wasn’t sure if it’s something that’s well out of bounds for a parent to ask to see.
It’s a CofE state school rather than private.
Thanks

As someone has said above, schools are subject to freedom of information requests. You could ask to see copies of all correspondence relating to the purchase of the thing you are worried to. However, your name goes on the request so it might make things a little awkward with the school ....

I'd probably start by either asking for copies of governor meeting minutes, or by contacting a governor to have a discussion.

The Sports & Pupil Premium spend should be published on the school website too.

@Lougle

The Head doesn't get to decide large expenditure. The Head suggests a use for the budget and the governors agree or decline the suggestion. Ultimately, the governors (of which the Head is one) are accountable for school expenditure.

Not true

There is a level of delegation to the Head which is agreed every year

Could be £5k (low)
£10k more usual
£100,00 less usual

We don't have a particular budget for an area of the curriculum.

We have an overall resources budget and we put requests to the head for things we need. If we know we need something as it's been planned for the next term, we just put a request in and it's usually agreed.

@Simbacatisback

A subject in a primary school?

£50-£200 per anumn

Some possibilities:

Often money is ring-fenced so has to be spent in a specific way. Most likely this is Sports Premium, or possibly something Covid-related such as ICT provision or catch-up funding.

A Diocese might fund something for its schools related to their religious character, which other people might not see as “essential”, e.g. Bibles or a decorative crucifix for the main hall.

Our village school was set up 100s of years ago and funded year on year by the interest from the money bequested by the school founder.
When the national education system was established, the school was taken over by the Local Authority and that money is still distributed annually to all schools in the area, but clearly demarcated to fund extras, not things that the LA should be funding.

Incidentally, that school has had three attempts to raise money for its swimming pool to be refurbished in the past 20 years, but never reached the required target. That money still exists, and will be put towards the work when it is finally done, so it is not 100% “new” money being spent, and having its own swimming pool might meet your description as not essential.

As others said, budgets are normally put together in a way with many things put together, not really out by subject, so even if you see the spreadsheet, you'll need someone who knows it to give it context. I'm not entirely clear on the issue, but it's possibly something to bring to the governing body's attention by contacting the chair with the details that should be on the school's website. The chair specifically, as Mumdiva99 said, in a calm and measured way.

I repeat that, because some pp said a governor and - while I don't think you would - I've seen some parent governors particularly dragged through the mud and deal with a lot of abuse as they're often easiest to find governor when parents are frustrated with a school decision or how they feel a head is acting. After seeing what information is available on the schools website, if asking the governors questions on this, please contact the chair. They will the best equipped to get it to any others who can help quicker than other governors who may need to go through the chair anyways depending on how the board is set up and how they were trained to treat that type of request.

You would need to ask.

We don't allocate individual departments any funds but some schools may do.

How will this information help you?

If not English, maths or PE, the budget is likely to be £50 to a few hundred pounds as a pp said.

We don't have a budget per subject in our primary school. The majority of money is spend on staffing, bills, building maintenance etc. We have a pot for Learning Resources which would probably cover what you're after but it's not broken down by subject.

The school improvement plan may help you understand why they're throwing money at a particular subject but it's normally only circulated to governors.

What are they spending their catch up funding on, again that would be on their website?

I suppose it would be outing to tell us what purchase you are concerned about

Write to your Chair of Govs outlining your concerns and requesting that they look into it. State you understand the money for the item many have been ringfenced/gifted etc but were if not you want to make them aware of the repeated requests for parents to subsidise the purchasing of basic and essential items from their own pockets.

You will not be able to see it per subject in the budget. I am a school governor and we can see 'curriculum spend' but not per subject.

If it is a large/ controversial expense then it will likely have been debated at the finance committee and or full governing body and those minutes should be in the website or you can ask to have copies as those are a matter of public record.

Do be aware though that this may have been funded through a) ring fenced funding eg sports premium and high can only be spent on sport or b) fundraising activity or an external grant. We refurbished our swimming pool. It cost far more than the school could ever afford but in fact it was paid for by a private swimming lesson provider in lieu of rent for lessons outside school hours. That's a good use of public funds in my eyes because the children get a resource without the school budget paying. In the past we have also got a forest school area funded by a housing developer, an arts event funded by an Arts Council grant and a new boiler via a council energy efficiency scheme. Those were all good plays I'd say.
The other thing we might do is spend 'carried over' funds on a capital project. This is also a good idea because the council will take back any money over a certain amount if not spent so if we do have a small surplus built up over years then it's in our interests to use it or lose it.

The budget is usually almost wholly swallowed up by staffing and running costs. The amount there is for curriculum or capital spend is very small. There is not much to play with.

Your question is one about the day to day running of the school ie operational and should be addressed to the head teacher in the first instance. If you don't get an answer from them then write to the chair of governors. And if you want a say in this sort of stuff then stand for parent governor or ask if there are any vacancies.

The item may not have been paid for via school funds. A canny HOD will keep their eye out for any grants/ charitable funds that might be available. It can be a pain and time consuming to apply - often it is a lengthy written document, then a follow up to prove how the money was spent and that it had an impact on learning. For some less favoured department/ subject areas these grants are often a hugely important way to support buying new text books, materials or equipment.

Next year we are hoping to fund a major improvement but again it won't be for the budget which can barely fund the day to day. In fact we have got a collaboration with a university department which we are hoping will come off. That's the way most extra stuff is funded these days:
Fund raising and grants. There just wouldn't be enough in a school budget to splurge on a major spend from the yearly allocation.

Usually we do put stuff in the newsletter about how things are funded if it's big stuff but the commercial or charitable organisation might not want full figures in public and we have to sign agreements on that.

As others have said the head is not ultimately to blame for this spend. The governors sign off on the budget and the amount the head can spend without seeking governor approval is usually rather limited and would need to be within the allocated budget anyway.

First step ask to see minutes rather than budget figures and second step write to the chair if you are unhappy with the way funds were allocated.

Sometimes there is specific funding for specific areas, which can be very frustrating for the school too. I recall we got some IT funding that had to be spent on IT when we really wanted books for example.

You could easily as a school be in a situation where you get a grant or funding that allowed you to buy a big seemingly flashy item but be struggling to get enough exercise books. It’s just the mad way funding works at the moment. The HT/governors wouldn’t have the choice to divert that capital grant to normal expenditure however much they wanted to. They would only have the choice of getting or not getting funding for the ‘big flashy thing’.

My school spent a huge amount of money on ICT equipment that was used very briefly - found not too work very well or be at all useful. It now sits gathering dust in a storeroom somewhere. Sadly the grant available could only be spent on this equipment. I could weep when I think how many essential basics like text books, glue, scissors and laptops for kids who have no access could have been bought with the money.

At the time when some fancy and expensive virtual reality kit was bought my classroom had a leaking room with a bucket underneath it. The VR headset could only be used by one child at a time - I have no idea how anyone thought that was a good investment. It was a novelty and has not been used after the first month or so. Totally impractical to be used with a class and very limited software to go with it. Sadly we could not use the money for repairs or for books because the money was ring fenced.

Thank you so so much for all the polite and interesting answers. It’s given me something to think over.
☺️

Have you managed to find out any information?

There are different funding streams which the school receives its resources.

	Delegated funding usually has no strings attached to it.

	Devolved funding comes with conditions on how the money can be spent. For example, you must be able to demonstrate how pupil premium money is benefiting target students.

	Capital funding can only be used to improve a long-term asset (eg upgrading buildings or the school’s technology network).

	Revenue funding should be used within a year (on salaries, heating, stationery and routine repairs etc).

A budget spreadsheet breakdown would show things like

Teaching Staff
Supply teachers
Support Assistants
Admin
Caretaker
Cleaners
Building maintenance
Building refurbishment
Heating/lighting/telephone/internet
Catering
Classroom resources

@ineedaholidaynow I haven’t been able to investigate further but I’ll be speaking to someone tomorrow about it 🙂

I have a significant level of experience in school budgets both primary and secondary. So to follow on from my initial comments if you want to talk more then it is probably best if you send me a private email and explain exactly what you are looking to understand.

Is it swimming? There is a school near us that asks for a contribution towards swimming even though it's a PE requirement.

If you can spot any grants or anything that would help, that might go down better than just criticising.

Our primary school had a rubbish piano, but the school wasn't interested in doing anything about it. A parent did some research, and came back with "here's a grant we can get and here's the deal the local suppliers will offer us", and it ended up happening at almost no cost to the school.

@Fakenham do the pupils need to travel to the pool.

I think some parents really don’t understand how stretched some schools are. If a school is asking for contributions for swimming that is probably because it will be a choice between swimming and books