What's a finance report and what should it include?
As a governor, it's your job to keep a close eye on your school's finances, including monitoring the school budget during the year.
You'll receive the finance report from either your SBM or CFO (depending on whether you're in a maintained school or an academy) before each finance committee meeting.
The report should:
- Have an overview of the budget to date – i.e. the 'headline figures' of all the money the school has received and spent at the time of the report
- Summarise the key changes since the last meeting
- Come with commentary to explain things such as:
- Whether something has changed since the last meeting and why
- Whether these changes were foreseeable
- What the consequences of the changes are
The budget, on the other hand, shows all of the school's finances to date in detail with no explanations.
What the budget was at the start of your school's