WatkinsonBlack accountants attended a meeting held at Culcheth High School in January. The meeting had been arranged between a number of schools within the Warrington area. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the possibility of the schools joining together to become a cluster of schools who would share the cost of mutual supplies and services.
Many of the services required of a modern school are beyond the financial capacity of a single school to provide without external assistance, whether that is from the local authority or some other source. The fact that 30 plus representatives from the various schools attended the meeting on the night shows that this is a major concern not only to the people who were there but in the education system in general.
Our short presentation considered some of the practical business models available to those schools represented focusing mainly on how to deliver local services in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Each of the models we drew attention to highlighted an increasingly formal collaboration between schools to provide those services. Turning away from the traditional manner in which schools operate i.e one school, with one head teacher and board of governors operating independently of any other school.
There is an ‘Informal Collaboration’ between schools. This is where a group of schools join forces to achieve certain specified and limited mutual objectives, such as a specialist educational needs, whilst maintaining separate governing bodies and operating independently in all other respects.
Then there is a ‘Chain’ or ‘Cluster’ which is a formal arrangement within which a group of schools join together to achieve specified mutual objectives, but in this case it is under the leadership of one of the member schools.
Lastly, there is a ‘School Company’ this is the most formal arrangement where a group of schools form a Company to co-operate in partnership to deliver cost effective services, by sharing resources. It is possible for the company to be formed as a ‘Community Interest Company’. This is a company whose objects are to benefit the community as a whole in certain specified ways.
If you are part of the education system and you are aware of others who are concerned about funding changes we may be able to assist in an advisory capacity.
Telephone 01925 413210 or e-mail on margaret@warringtonaccountants.co.uk
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