The Schools Finance Policy and Guidance section of The Hub is intended to help education professionals with their responsibilities in meeting their statutory requirements around financial policies and documents required.
There are many financial regulations and procedures that schools need to follow. The Department for Education (DfE) has published a range of information relating to all aspects of administration and finance for schools, including expenditure, capital, recruitment, funding and emergency planning.
Schools in Waltham Forest should follow Waltham Forest Council's financial regulations, which take into account all of the DfE's information around finance.
These financial regulations are recommended to all Community Schools and Foundation Schools. They apply only to the funds provided directly by the local authority to Voluntary Schools. There are three parts to the regulations:
Each year, the local authority produces an annual budget document for the benefit of a wide range of stakeholders including head teachers, school bursars and business managers, finance managers, governors and the owners and managers of Private, Independent and Voluntary providers (PVIs).
The local authority's objective is to keep everyone fully informed about the decisions relating to the Local Funding Formulas for 3 to 4 year olds and 5 to 16 year olds.
The budget document explains the changes that have been made to the two funding formulas and then sets out in a series of spreadsheets how the budget share for each organisation has been calculated.
Download the the guidance for schools who are facing financial challenges and are unable to set a balanced budget and require either cash advances or a licensed deficit budget.
As well as adhering to financial policies and procedures, schools need to produce a policy on charging and remissions. The governing body is free to determine how often this policy is reviewed.
The governing body is free to delegate approval of the policy to a committee of the governing body, an individual governor or the head teacher. The charging and remissions policy should also be published on a school's website.
The scheme for financing schools sets out the financial relationship between the Local Authority and the maintained schools that it funds.