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Aim 4 - Finance ........................................................................................................................................................... 18
Key foci within this Aim for 2021-22
4.3 Develop an effective system of regular financial management reporting between the trust and individual schools
4.5 Ensure value for money efficiencies through effective procurement policy and practice
4.7 Ensure long term financial plans are in place and reviewed regularly and fit with the long-term strategic aims of the Trust
Aim 5 Systems
Our systems underpin everything we do and developing those systems in a multi-academy trust can be slow and difficult – a shortage of available resources and the need to ‘bring together’ schools with historically different ways of working all provide barriers to change.
But change is necessary to move forward and we pride ourselves on the fact that we have continued to move things forward despite the difficult circumstances presented over the past 12-18 months.
5.2 Ensure that the HR software used is fit for purpose for a growing trust in order to increase efficiency and productivity
The Trust People Team has worked incredibly hard with an external company, HR Fusion, to create and implement a new Trust-wide online platform for a whole variety of HR purposes. This will be more efficient for all of our staff, whatever their role, and further developmental work in this regard will be undertaken next academic year.
5.5 Establish and develop an effective Trustwide IT system
This objective has been worked on steadily over the past three years. It started with creating a single Trust domain and then gradually moving all schools in the Trust onto that. Since then, our schools have had upgrades to their broadband, WiFi and servers as well as significant investment in IT hardware.
The de Ferrers Academy has a long established 1:1 iPad strategy from Year 9 upwards. This programme was rolled out to our two Derbyshire-based secondary schools in 2018 and next academic year will see the programme expanding again to encompass all students from Year 7 upwards. This is a very exciting development and one which has become even more necessary throughout the pandemic. 5.6 Develop and maintain cross-Trust estates management processes
As with IT, estates has seen significant investment over the past three years. We have invested in specialised asset management and statutory compliance software to provide the robust tools necessary to manage our large and varied estate (which comprises of nine sites).
Our use of the Schools Conditions Funding we receive each year is a real success story with huge improvements to the learning environments at all of our schools being made, as well as all key health and safety related issues being addressed as soon as possible.
Our Trust Estates Team has recently expanded to include a new Trust Estates Officer to work with and support the ongoing developments being made by the Trust Estates Manager.
Key foci within this Aim for 2021-22
5.4 Develop and establish a clear Trust service framework
