National Audit Office Report on Oversight of financial management in Schools

The National Audit Office have published a report on  Oversight of financial management in Local authority maintained schools.


School Governors Role in the Schools Financial Value Standard

3.14 Governors support schools’ financial management through strategic oversight. Their importance and influence are likely to increase as schools become more autonomous. The Department has recognised the importance of the support and challenge provided by governors. It expects governors to ensure that their schools properly complete the self-assessment against the new Schools Financial Value Standard.


3.15 We nevertheless found widespread concern about the extent to which governors, particularly in primary schools, have the necessary financial expertise to fully support and challenge their schools. Twenty-seven per cent of respondents to our survey of local authorities thought that only a few of their primary schools had governing bodies with sufficient financial expertise. Some primary schools replying to our online survey considered that their governing body could benefit from improved expertise.


3.16 The Department plans to support governing bodies’ financial expertise through new training for chairs of governors that includes a discretionary module on financial management. It has also funded the National College to develop a programme for high-performing chairs of governors to mentor other chairs. It plans to amend the regulations covering the make-up of school governing bodies to make it easier to select governors on the basis of their expertise, and has made the new Schools Financial Value Standard easier for governors to use (paragraph 2.9).


You can find the full report here


http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1012/schools_financial_management.aspx