Teach Primary Issue 18.7

I have never heard of a school finding £30,000 stuck down the back of an interactive whiteboard; we have to treat finances very carefully at all times. We usually know our budgets pretty far in advance – give or take a small increase or decrease; therefore, we need to budget within our resources and always think ahead and build our plans around this reality. Difficult decisions Early on in one of my headships, I had to make more than £250,000 of cuts in the budget. This huge amount meant I had to plan a restructure and make a considerable number of redundancies. Once I had finished the business plan I shared it with all the stakeholders, including parents. I was new to the school community and wanted to impress them, but here I was cutting the budget and my ‘so-called’ leadership was now seen as ‘taking away from the school’, making it weaker. I still remember the parent session with a sense of dread: a busy school hall and many angry and emotional people. At one point, a parent whose child was very unwell stood up and said to me, “On your head be it!”. She was crying as she said it. What do you say to that? I felt terrible, but it changed nothing. I still made those people redundant. If I hadn’t, the school would have been hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt within a few years. Many years later we were functioning at least as well and no longer had a deficit budget. That parent was also singing the praises of the school and the provision for their child. Weathering moments and sticking to difficult decisions is critical, even when every fibre of your soul is screaming at you to stop what you are doing. Living in the moment in schools can be a great challenge, and in that moment all can seem lost. The business meeting in which the cuts were agreed and the dates set for telling the staff still sticks in my memory. I hadn’t been at the school long and I Preparing for procurement reform The way in which primary education budgets are spent will change significantly as the Procurement Act 2023 comes into force. The new regulations aim to make the transition from EU to UK law post-Brexit more transparent and straightforward. However, there is currently a lack of understanding among SLTs as to how this will affect day-to-day practices. One key change of the Act is likely to be the refinement of procurement notices. These notices will now be required throughout the lifecycle of the procurement process, from planning to tender, contract award, contract management, and termination. Schools and trusts must improve training, upgrade data management and ensure e-tendering systems can handle these new demands. A new centralised digital platform for procurement will be rolled out in phases. This will bring all procurement-related information into one place, including data on both available suppliers and those not eligible to be awarded public sector contracts. Register at the government’s Transforming Public Procurement page ( tinyurl.com/ tp-Procurement ) to get the latest updates and ensure your organisation is receiving the best return on value, and complying with the new procurement requirements. The new legislation also replaces existing procurement processes with two competitive routes plus a direct award option: • Open procedure – A single-stage, unrestricted competition. • Competitive flexible procedure – Allows schools and trusts to design their procurement processes. • Direct awards – Enables contracts to be awarded without competition in specific situations. Schools and trusts can continue to use frameworks and existing DPSs (all DPSs will end in October 2028). Open frameworks will now last for a maximum of eight years to allow for more frequent appointments of new suppliers. This should enhance flexibility in procurement, and reduce the exclusion of smaller or newer suppliers. Additionally, Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) will be removed, and Dynamic Markets introduced, which will require a Tender Notice for each procurement and cannot be used for contracts below threshold. For schools and trusts using a framework or DPS set up under the Public Contract Regulations 2015, those rules will still apply when awarding contracts under those agreements. If you’re responsible for budgets but unsure how the rule changes will affect you, reach out to procurement organisations such as YPO ( ypo.co.uk ) for practical advice. Partnering with education procurement services can extend the capabilities of internal teams, offering expertise and resources that might be otherwise inaccessible. You can watch a webinar from YPO all about procurement reform at tinyurl. com/tp-Reform , and take a look at tinyurl. com/tp-RefEducation to learn more about procurement reform in education. Michelle Walker is head of procurement services at YPO. She is an award-winning procurement professional with extensive experience in the public sector. ypo.co.uk 40 | www.teachwire.net