Better value for money in schools
These four briefings are designed to help schools make the best use of their workforce – whether teachers, teaching assistants, or administration and finance staff – at a time when they have to find savings.
England’s maintained schools spent £35 billion in 2009/10. School staff account for over three-quarters of this total and form one of the country’s largest public sector workforces.
These briefings, under the heading Better value for money in schools, examine patterns in spending in maintained schools in England. They aim to help school heads, governing bodies and councils control costs without compromising educational attainment.
They look at four areas where schools have scope to improve efficiency:
- the deployment of classroom staff, including class sizes and allocation of teachers and teaching assistants;
- the breadth and focus of schools’ curriculum offer;
- approaches to covering for staff absence, including supply teachers; and
- the size, cost and composition of the wider (non-teaching) school workforce.
In addition we published a summary paper, An overview of school workforce spending, which is targeted at chairs of governing bodies and lead members on children’s services.
For more information about the briefings you can email schoolsworkforce@audit-commission.gov.uk.
Downloads
Classroom deployment
Curriculum breadth
Managing staff absence and cover
The wider schools workforce
An overview of school workforce spending