Do state/maintained schools have to pucblish accounts?

[barnetparent]

Does anyone now if state.maintained schools have to publish accounts?

Have they not? Look on the Companies House Website.

No

No

No, what would expect to learn from them?

They do have to publish how they spend the pupil premium money

Noble, maintained schools aren't companies

Companies House has nothing to do with state schools.

School Governing bodies have to agree a budget. They are given a sum of money each year and apportion it to spending areas, eg staff, heating, training etc. This budget must go to the full governing body for ratification. Usually before the end of May after the start of the financial year on 1 April. As the budget is on the agenda and ratification is minuted, a parent can ask to see the budget as it was presented to the GB as an appendix.

Schools don’t publish accounts as such. At the end of the financial year, and when all payments and receipts have been accounted for, there is a final end of financial year statement which covers all spending heads. What was the budget, what was spent and is the budget balanced. That sort of thing. It’s very detailed. It shows underspends and overspending. They might let you see this but unless it’s an approved document attached to an agenda or minutes they might say it’s confidential. You need to ask. These statements are normally looked at in detail by the Finance Committee of the Governing Body. They also have numerous ongoing statements so monitor expenditure very regularly.

See what your school says about seeing documents but they shouldn’t all be confidential as they don’t name staff or DC.

Academies do have to, yes. They have to publish them on the trusts' website no later that Jan 31. Non-academies don't have to.

You can see almost all maintained school financial statement on the compare schools gov website. It's under one of the options once you choose the school. Academies publish them on their website.

Academies have to prepare accounts that follow company and charity accounting rules.

Companies House has nothing to do with state schools.

There’s a bunch of financial info about my school on Companies House under the MAT accounts.

If your part of a MAT you're not a maintained school noble

All Academy Schools are companies and their accounts will be at Companies House.

All LEA schools will publish the statutory information on the Council's relevant website under the transparency code.

Here is the LEA table for the whole of Barnet assumption made based on OPs name
www.barnet.gov.uk/sites/default/files/assets/citizenportal/documents/schoolsandeducation/Section251Tables/201617/LATableReport201617.pdf

The DFE tables allow extensive drill down on individual schools
example here
www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/135747/jcoss/workforce-and-finance/finance?accordionstate=1

If your part of a MAT you're not a maintained school noble

Ah, not clear from the thread title! Academies are state schools and the slash is misleading.

Page 41 here
Shows how the management charges of a MAT work

The Barnet one isn’t individual schools, it’s the LA.

bubbles
Indeed, that is what I said.
THe DFE gives more drilldown.
some LEAs publish budget data but its not required

unclear why the OP wants to know

Sorry, ListeningQuietly. Being a bit dense.

Probably because they are asking parents for money?! Schools tend to gloss over budgets when talking to parents apart from hand wringing and saying they do not have enough money. They rarely share how money is spent though. Almost certainly because parents would look at the wage bill and faint!

Bubbles
Indeed so.
Here is a council that actually gives some of the numbers in a more readable format - school picked at random
www.hants.gov.uk/educationandlearning/schoolbudgetshares/budget-shares-current?DFESNO=5410

You are entitled to ask to see governing body minutes along with any documentation referred to in the minutes. Since governing bodies are responsible for overseeing the financial performance of the school, the school budget and data relating to that will have been reviewed on a regular basis in meetings. You are therefore entitled to see that information, too. The chance of the data you are seeking being protected by the data protection regulations is exceptionally remote - only a limited amount of what governing bodies discuss can be kept confidential. You certainly won't have any access to individual staff appraisal and salary recommendations, even if any members of the governing body did for any reason, but will have access to overall spends in different areas of the budget, governing body discussions on this, and whether there were any overspends or underspends, and will be able to compare this data with other maintained schools' data. You could also make a Freedom of Information request. First port of call would be the DfE compare school performance site, though. Maintained school accounts are heavily scrutinised by governing bodies, local authorities and, through them, by central government. They are not permitted to be secretive with their public money.