Multi Lot: School Resource Management Advisers, Accreditation and Chief Financial Officer Mentoring procurements - Contract numbers con_10111, con_10112, con_10113, con_10114

1) In the 2017/18 academic year, ESFA piloted the use of School Resource Management Advisers (SRMAs). SRMAs have become a core strand of the wider School Resource Management portfolio supporting DfE’s overarching objective to help schools improve outcomes for pupils and promote social mobility by getting the best value from all their resources. The SRMA programme has supported this strategy by developing capacity within schools through providing them with a sector expert to help identify opportunities to improve the management of their resources. The SRMA programme has been hugely successful to date and we now wish to complement this with a Chief Finance Officer (CFO) mentoring programme. 2) SRMAs provide short term (5 to 10 days) support to trusts and local authorities to help them make best use of their budgets. A CFO mentoring programme would complement the SRMA programme by providing longer term support to academy trust CFOs working in the most challenging situations; those in trusts in intervention, those in trusts that are growing and those that are new to the sector. 3) A strong system of financial management and control, driven by the CFO, is essential in ensuring good financial health in any academy trust. We know that new CFOs or those working in trusts in financial difficulty face particular challenges and a mentor can support these leaders as they set up systems or bring about better financial performance within their trust. 4) A CFO mentoring pilot would help us accurately determine how mentoring can support and develop academy trust CFOs and explore the value of launching a substantive scheme for the 2022/23 academic year. 5) ESFA would like to prioritise participants as mentees who fall into the following categories: i. CFOs of those trusts that have been identified as being in financial difficulty or not following administration/procedures associated with good financial governance, for example trusts that appear on the list of published late financial returners for the last two consecutive years; and ii. CFOs who are new to post and/or inexperienced in the academies sector

1. The role of the Accredited Person will be to support academy trusts and local authority maintained schools who have come to the ESFA’s attention as requiring support to improve their financial health. Accredited Persons will take a holistic view of the school’s/trust’s financial situation, including consideration of the following issues: 1.1 Human resources: Effective curriculum delivery, workforce planning and wider use of staff and leadership time through the use of Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP); 1.2 School management and governance: financial management and challenge across the senior leadership team and board of governors; 1.3 Resources: Procurement (including, for example, consideration of National Deals, schools’ buying strategies etc.), value for money, capital finance and estate management. 2. Accredited Persons will support effective resource management by providing independent and impartial advice to schools and trusts on how to maximise resources in order to maintain and improve educational outcomes for all pupils, including those with SEN. Accredited Persons should take into account the nature of the school, i.e. whether it is academy or maintained, MAT or SAT, mainstream, special or Alternative Provision, primary or secondary, and whether it is a faith school. 3. In the most serious cases, an Accredited Person shall be required to support a school or trust to develop a viable budget plan by examining its financial planning and proposed spending plans. As part of this, the Accredited Person will be expected to consider whether the trust or school uses an ICFP approach and, if so, how this is carried out. This includes identifying whether it uses ICFP diagnostic tools and models and how. 4. In cases where the school or trust is in a less serious financial position or already in good financial health, the Accredited Person shall be required to make recommendations on how the school or trust can further improve its approach to financial management to ensure every possible resource is being directed to the areas that have greatest impact on educational outcomes. Again, a part of this will be determined by the school or trust’s approach to ICFP. 5. Where the trust or school does take an ICFP approach, the Accredited Person shall work through the key metrics to identify options that could potentially deliver improvements in the way staff are deployed. Where the trust or school does not, the Accredited Persons shall help it introduce ICFP into its planning processes as well as suggesting other options for improvements. 6. In most instances, Accredited Persons will be expected to carry out a ‘follow-up’ deployment to the same setting at least six months after report submission. The purpose of this deployment will be to check on progress against the recommendations. 7. All Accredited Persons must carry out a minimum of two deployments per year (from the date of their accreditation) to maintain their accredited status.

1. ESFA currently has contracts in place for the accreditation and supply of SRMAs through to August 2021. Due to the success of the programme to date, we are looking to contract with one organisation for the development and delivery of induction and accreditation panels and complementary training. 2. SRMAs were introduced in 2017 to provide direct support to academy trusts and local authorities to identify opportunities to improve resource management. This is part of ESFA’s overarching objective to help improve outcomes for pupils by schools getting the best value from all of their resources. 3. In higher risk cases, SRMAs provide advice and support to address current or future forecast deficits and in all cases they help trusts and schools identify opportunities to make better use of their funding, enabling them to target resources where they have the most impact on outcomes for children. 4. Prior to deployment, all Accredited Persons will have participated in an induction and successfully completed an accreditation process led by an independent Accreditation Body. Persons who were accredited before 31 August 2021 will automatically become Accredited Persons for the purposes of this Contract and will not need further accreditation, assuming they are still currently active SRMAs and have fulfilled the criteria set by ESFA to maintain their accredited status. Accreditation will provide assurance to ESFA that the Accredited Person can use the findings of their deployment (including analysis and discussions with trust/school leaders) to develop appropriate recommendations, with costed savings, for the trust/school to take to improve their approach to resource management. 5. Specific requirements of the role are set out in the ITT. All Potential Providers must describe how they will deliver against each requirement.

• Reference: 021808-2021-con_10111-1
• Value: £56,375

• Reference: 021808-2021-con_10112-2
• Value: £635,862

• Reference: 021808-2021-con_10114-3
• Value: £191,464

• Reference: 021808-2021-con_10113-4
• Value: £252,320