The Benefits of a Business Manager

Research shows that school business managers increase schools’ budgets, efficiency and pay for themselves

Recent research by the National College has illustrated that the current policy environment is putting stress on the traditional leadership model of schools; a model where one headteacher is supported by a deputy and several senior members of teaching staff.

To allow teaching staff to concentrate on teaching and to ensure that pupil standards and pupil welfare are protected, it has been concluded that schools will need to move away from the traditional model of leadership and adopt a model where some key responsibilities are distributed away from the headteacher.
The research shows that effectively deployed school business managers can take many of these responsibilities and save headteachers up to a third of their time, allowing headteachers to ensure a higher standard of teaching and learning throughout their schools. Saving headteachers’ time in this manner also means that school business managers can help to improve headteachers’ work-life balance. This is something the Department of Education, local authorities and school governors have said they desire.
It has been found that through

• identifying savings and additional funding
• using local authority finances and resources to maximum effect
• efficiently controlling schools’ property and maintenance systems
School business managers could increase the financial resources of the average primary school by £18,000 and the average secondary school by £56,000.
The National College research shows that the benefits a business manager brings to a school mean that, on average, business managers cover their salary costs over a three year period.
It also suggests that pupils attending schools without business managers will fare worse than pupils at schools where business managers are employed. This is due to the increased amount of time that senior teaching staff have to actually teach at schools where business managers are, in part, responsible for the running of the school.