The Governing Board of Ermysted’s Grammar School has decided to publish material about the School’s financial position in its desire to ensure openness, transparency and best practice concerning all information about the School.
As a Local Authority maintained school, Ermysted’s financial information is recorded and reported via North Yorkshire County Council to the Department for Education (“DfE”) using a standardised approach which allows for the consolidation of records under terminology and headings which are not necessarily clear to non-expert readers.
Therefore, the School has simplified the information into a format which the Governors believe is more accessible.
The information has been validated by the Local Authority following the end of each financial year and separately the School has also engaged the services of an independent professional firm to audit the records and confirm their accuracy.
Please click here to visit the school’s page on the schools financial benchmarking service.
Notes to the accounts
Revenue account
The School receives income from the DfE via the Local Authority for pupils aged from 11 to 16. The amount is based on the number of pupils and a fixed amount per pupil, but further subject to some minor adjustments to the total. For example, in the case Ermysted’s, there is an additional allowance to compensate for the fact that the School has to use sports pitches elsewhere as there are limited facilities at the School site.
The School receives funding for students in the Sixth Form based on a different methodology, but again essentially determined on the basis of the number of students in Year 12 and Year 13.
The third stream of Government funding is provided to support particular groups, specifically those who qualify for Pupil Premium or who have additional educational needs. The amount of money from this stream can vary quite significantly from year-to-year depending on the actual cohort of pupils at the School. This money is ring-fenced to be used in support of those pupils and a separate explanation of how that money has been spent is provided each year on the School’s website.
Capital account
Ermysted’s position is complicated slightly by the fact that it is a Voluntary-Aided Foundation School. As a consequence the Governors (the School) are usually required to contribute 10% of the Capital Funding allocated from the School’s revenue budget or from its reserves.
This Voluntary-Aided status has also meant that for many years, such money has been transferred by DfE to the Foundation and drawn down by the School as and when required largely to support maintenance and repairs.
The summary information provided distinguishes between the annual allowance provided for maintenance and repairs and project specific funding awarded for particular projects as a result of bids submitted to the DfE and the Local Authority.
Where some Capital Funding has been awarded or allocated to particular projects it has not always been transferred from the Foundation to the School at the same time as the project has been completed because the DfE may only provide the money several weeks after the completion of a project.
This can affect the numbers shown in the accounts and has been the case in each of the last four years where projects have been completed (and expenditure incurred by the School) in one financial year but the associated income not transferred from the Foundation to the School until the following period. For that reason there is a difference between figures shown for Capital Funding and Capital Expenditure.
Financial reserves
The School has recovered from a challenging financial position a few years ago which had forecast a cumulative deficit and has accumulated money in its reserves in the last few years through careful control of costs and prudent financial management, for example operating with a smaller Senior Leadership Team than other comparable schools and renegotiating external contracts.
The Governing Board believes that it is prudent to maintain a level of financial reserves in the order of £300,000 to £400,000 against the need for unforeseen capital expenditure or to contribute towards significant future investment.
Performance in 2019/20 and 2020/21
The restoration of financial reserves during the period from 2017 to 2019 allowed the School to undertake significant investments during the course of 2019/20 including the installation of a CCTV network around the School site to improve safety and security, refurbishment of the Memorial Hall, replacement of the floor in the Sports Hall, repairs to a number of leaking roofs in several buildings and the resurfacing of driveways and paths. As a consequence, the financial reserves were reduced during the course of the year.
The School benefitted from an increase in funding per pupil in 2020/21 which boosted overall income despite the loss of income from lettings and catering services curtailed during the pandemic. Significant expenditure was incurred during 2020/21 introducing modifications around the site to facilitate the return of pupils and in both enhancing the IT infrastructure and providing equipment for staff to deliver remote teaching. Additional capital funding was secured by the School to cover most of these costs leaving a broadly flat financial outturn for the year.