Finance
SLT has some key finance priorities which guide our strategic planning, decision-making and operations to ensure we deliver outstanding financial management across the trust.
Our priorities are to:
- Ensure we have a culture of Best Value by spending wisely on areas which benefit the students in our trust;
- Ensure our operating models are developed incrementally, to be sustainable and affordable as we expand.
- Maintain an appropriate level of reserves to meet medium term challenges
- Be financially compliant, professional and confident.
- Seek opportunities to maximise income and do things cost effectively
Sussex Learning Trust, like most Multi Academy Trusts, operates in a challenging and uncertain economic environment. Cost pressures from increases in areas such as National Insurance, pensions and salaries, reductions in various grants and changes in the national funding formula present significant challenges.
As a trust we ensure that across every part of our work and operation we have robust strategic budget planning, good cash management and a clear shared understanding of how we deliver high quality education within finite resources.
Value For Money
Ethical leadership demands that public money devolved for the purposes of education must be spent prudently, wisely, and, with the odd exception, on the children in the academies ‘today’. As a Sussex-based trust we know all about poor funding levels and how critical it is to extract the maximum value from each and every pound. Historically, becoming an academy did bring financial advantage, but now it is a cost neutral decision. The real value is derived from the extensive collaboration across the academies within the trust. We know that schools enquiring about joining us will have high on their list of questions, ‘What does it cost to become a partner in the SLT?’ and ‘What do we get for our money?’
Each year the government devolves to the trust the budget for each of our academies. The trust extracts the Annual Partnership Contribution (APC) from this sum and the rest is left to the LGB to deliver the academies’ published and intended outcomes and improvements. Most of the services included in the APC will directly assist in academy improvement or inform areas that should be worked on as priorities within the Academy Development Plan. The CEO and officers will be committed to adding value to the improvement ‘journey’.
