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Are schools really saving money through efficiency?

What is the most effective way of saving significant sums through efficiencies made within the school?

Last month a simple four question research programme within schools revealed a way through which most schools can make considerable savings on their postage bills.

There was nothing particularly dramatic about the find – it simply involved abandoning the use of franking machines and stamps with the schools instead opening accounts with Royal Mail and paying a postage bill at the end of the month.

Not only does the system avoid all the costs of franking machines (including the hidden costs inherent in most of the contracts), but it also attracts a significantly lower cost of postage than using stamps. Royal Mail makes no charge for the service.

Of course, moving across from postage stamps or franking machines to a Royal Mail account isn’t going to save tens of thousands of pounds – but in a sense that is the point of school efficiency programmes.

Yes, on occasion some schools will find really big savings by rearranging timetables, changing the supplier of school meals, etc. But much of the time the huge savings that can be made come from a collection of smaller, simple changes.

This is not to suggest that schools are inefficient per se but rather shows that the focus on smaller individual issues will always reveal opportunities for the more effective use of time and lower costs. As such the move to RM invoicing is a perfect example.

Which is where the School of Educational Administration and Management comes in. Founded in 2005 with support from the government and the University of Northampton, the SEAM has worked with thousands of schools to establish which processes work in saving schools money. The postage account system is just one of many.

Now many of our findings are reported in one volume: “The Efficient School.”

This book reveals not only many of the projects that schools have introduced in recent years in order to achieve efficiencies but also the vital processes which these schools use to ensure that objections to change are overcome and that changes, once implemented, are maintained and developed.

As such the report explores not only areas in which savings can be made but also the way in which the whole issue of changing well-established processes and habits can be handled in a school.

The Efficient School is available in copiable form (as a printed volume or on CD) so that it can be distributed to all interested members of staff.

ISBN: 978 1 86083 811 8 Order code: T1803emn – please quote with order.

Sample pages can be viewed at http://www.pdf.firstandbest.co.uk/education/T1803.pdf

  • Photocopiable book, £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
  • CD with school-wide rights: £24.95 plus £3.95 delivery
  • Both the book and the CD: £31.94 plus £3.95 delivery
  • Prices include VAT.

You can purchase the report…