Local governing bodies: your role in school finance and budgets
Get an idea of how you might be involved in school finance, like the budget setting process, regardless of how much delegated power you have.
Contents
Our associate education expert, Angela Browne, helped us to write this article.
Find out if you can attend trustee finance meetings
Check your articles of association, but the Department for Education's (DfE's) model articles don't set any restrictions on who can attend meetings.
So if you're allowed to attend, you should feel free to do so – trustees will want to hear your view.
Why attend
Regardless of how much delegated responsibility your LGB has, it could be a good idea to attend finance-related board meetings. This is so you can:
- Keep up to date on what’s happening in your trust
- Ask questions from your perspective as an LGB
- Get an idea of what decisions will affect you as an LGB, and what’s happening with other schools in the trust
- Raise relevant issues regarding your school, like if there's any unforeseen circumstances which require additional spending
It might be good for your LGB
Read next
Also in 'School budget & expenditure'
- Approving the budget: questions to ask (finance committee)
- Approving the budget: questions to ask (full board)
- Coronavirus: additional funding for your schools
- Governors and trustees supplying schools with goods or services
- How to monitor and scrutinise the budget in finance committee meetings
- Local governing bodies (LGBs): how to monitor value for money