School Funding Legal Framework
The School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations give effect to the changes to the school funding system previously announced.
The 2021 regulations came into force February 2021 and can be found via the following link: The School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2021 (legislation.gov.uk)
Schools financial value standard (SFVS)
The standard is a mandatory requirement for local authority maintained schools. Governing bodies of maintained schools or management committees of pupil referral units (PRUs) have formal responsibility for the financial management of their schools, and so the standard is primarily aimed at governors or management committees. The SFVS has been designed to assist schools to manage their finances and to give assurance that they have secure financial management in place.
Annual Completion
The Directed Revisions 2012 to the Schemes for Financing Schools makes it a mandatory requirement for all local authority maintained schools to complete the SFVS assessment form on an annual basis and submit a signed copy (by the Chair of Governors or management committee) to their authority.
What do schools need to do?
The SFVS checklist asks a number of questions of governing bodies in six areas of resource management to provide assurance that the school is managing its resources effectively. This can be used to identify possible areas for change to ensure that resources are being used to support high-quality teaching and the best education outcomes for pupils.
SFVS returns must be approved at a meeting by the Full Governing Body and signed by the Chair of Governors, before being submitted to the Local Authority prior to the 31st March annual deadline. Returns made after this date will be formally notified to the Department for Education as a late submission
The questions are split into six sections relating to:
- Governance
- School Strategy
- Setting the annual budget
- Staffing
- Value for money
- Protecting public money
There is also a supplementary full year Related Party Transaction template which must be completed and returned as part of the SFVS submission. A school should submit a NIL RPT return with their SFVS where they have no Related Party Transactions for the financial year.
As a reminder, the this needs to be submitted to the LA by 31st March and earlier submissions would be appreciated. Please send the SFVS (including the completed RPT template) by email to SFVS@veritau.co.uk and copy in schoolfinancialgovernance@northyorks.gov.uk (hard copies will not be accepted) by 31st March.
Support notes can be found at https://www.gov.uk/schools-financial-value-standard-and-assurance-sfvs
The notes provide clarification of the questions, examples of good practice and information on further support to assist schools in addressing specific issues.
Contact Veritau on internal.audit@veritau.co.uk if you have any queries.
