Our Finance team works behind the scenes to keep the organisation financially strong, compliant, and running smoothly. This page highlights what they’re focusing on right now, the projects currently underway, and the recent updates that support teams across the organisation. It’s a look at the work that helps keep everything balanced, accountable, and moving forward.

Recent Updates:

Good progress has been made across the first two finance implementation plan priorities. The introduction of finance@ inboxes for all schools was completed before the summer holidays, allowing Central Finance to monitor and manage communications during the break and reduce pressure on school staff who are not contracted to work during that period. This practice is now embedded, and colleagues are continuing to be encouraged to use these shared inboxes rather than personal emails for finance matters. The impact has been clear: the 2024/25 year-end process saw a dramatic reduction in late adjustments—from more than 800 lines in 2023/24 to just 40 this year—demonstrating much stronger financial control and earlier capture of transactions.

The second implementation plan focused on building the 2025/26 budgets and ensuring consistent coding across all schools. Budget codes have been fully aligned within IMP, with correctly coded budgets uploaded into the PSF finance system.

Schools have received their budget profiles via Central SharePoint, and training has been offered to all school-based staff involved in financial management. To maintain accuracy and consistency, Central Finance will review all codes each month to ensure transactions are aligned to the correct budget lines and that expenditure is only allocated where a budget exists.

The next phase of the implementation plan will focus on rolling out workflow in secondary schools for colleagues wishing to use the finance system to its full capability. Volunteers have been sought through STOC Comms, and those expressing interest will be contacted in January 2026. This functionality will allow staff—such as Heads of Department—to raise orders, view allocated budgets, and track remaining balances in real time. The final implementation plan, covering income management and income generation, will be reviewed and prepared for rollout towards the end of the academic year.