Last month REAch2 Academy Trust announced GAG pooling plans to centralise the funding and reserves of its 60 schools.
The reaction to this announcement in some quarters was strangely alarmist - some felt this was a land-grab by a large academy trust, others a further diminution of headteachers’ autonomy.
I must admit that these responses baffled me - not least because in our multi-academy trust we have done GAG (general annual grant) pooling for years; something that I speak about in the report The 2030 MAT Growth Challenge: Effective Strategies and Systems.
For us, pooling our funding is fundamental to support our vision and organisational strategy to ensure equity for every one of the 6,311 children we serve in our schools across the North of England, some of which have had a legacy of underachievement.
Academy trust funding: the benefits of GAG pooling
For example, pooling means that we can allocate funding so each school has the resources it needs to properly support its pupils, rather than being constrained by a budget that would put a “wall” around the school and reduce our ability to support it.
With our approach, small schools within our trust are able to offer the breadth of curriculum that our students deserve.
It means that schools with exceptional levels of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are resourced to ensure that students have access to the support to allow them to thrive.
And it means schools aren’t forced to make difficult decisions because of an exceptional cost that arises during a year because we are able to absorb that cost as a collective. Every school benefits from this approach at different times and in a different way.
This is made possible, in part, by the fact that pooling our resources also means we can identify economies of scale and operate more efficiently across the trust so we have more funding to allocate to each school.
With finance, for example, while we have a larger central team, there are fewer staff than we would have if we had devolved this to schools, reducing our wage bill. We have also halved the cost of health and safety through a much more efficient centralised approach.
These savings have allowed us to make available £1.4 million per year for curriculum and pastoral support, which is targeted at the students who need it the most.
Spreading expertise
Going forward, we are also looking at education psychological support, because ensuring that children with SEND get the right support in the right place and at the right time is vital, and our schools are struggling to find the resource to deliver this through traditional channels.
So we have decided to pool our resources and own it ourselves. This allows us to offer a more flexible and proactive service for our schools, with equity at its heart, and we can ensure that the resources available are utilised to have the most significant impact on students.
Some have a fixed view about centralisation, and in particular pooling, mainly due to high-profile cases where this approach has gone wrong - but in the right context and supported by a collective vision and culture, this is definitely a more efficient and effective way of working.
It cannot be right that a child in one school gets fewer opportunities than a child in another because of the nuanced National Funding Formula, something that I am sure they have never heard of as individuals but that can have a huge impact on their life chances.
Furthermore, objections to GAG pooling, in my experience, often involve views on the autonomy of leaders. Rarely do I hear conversations about whether pooling is right for the children - it is always about the autonomy of the headteacher or other concerns about perceived loss of control.
Indeed, I have never been challenged about pooling where I have underpinned conversations with our clear vision and values.
If one of our core values is equity, and ensuring that every child can thrive and achieve anything they want to, tell me how pooling resources does not fit that.
The autonomy question
It is very possible to pool without disempowering individuals, while using our resources in the best way for our communities and their individual contexts.
There is also a need to “trust the trust”, and, in our case, have faith in our values of equity and integrity.
I think most leaders get all of this - when we talk about this model, we only ever get questions, never resistance. There is a recognition that our approach is values-led, and its impact on our communities is visible.
Some schools and trusts can place too much emphasis on the mechanics of GAG pooling, but centrally it is our responsibility to deliver education to every one of our 6,311 students. A collective pool of resources allows us to do that well for each school within our family.
It is those trusts with an eye on equity for all, and a clear vision and organisational strategy, that will deliver real benefits to the communities they serve.
David Clayton is the CEO of Consilium Academies
