School Financial Benchmarking

Firfield Primary School carries out annual benchmarking which compares its performance data against comparable schools both locally and nationally.  This information is collated and prepared by the DfE and includes data on income, expenditure, workforce, premises, services, etc.   If you would like to look at this information in more detail, please click on the link below which will take you to the website:

Financial Benchmarking

Salary Declaration

It is a legislative requirement to declare if any school employee receives a gross annual salary of £100,000 or more.  Firfield Primary School can confirm that no school employee receives a salary of this figure.

Private School Funds

The local authority defines a private school fund as:-

" Where an officer of the council has responsibility for any funds other than official funds then this shall be deemed as a private fund. "

The overall responsibility for all the private funds held by the school lies with the Governing Body.  The Headteacher has the responsibility for ensuring that the Governing Body is kept fully informed of all the private funds at the school.

The Governing Body may open any suitable bank account for any of the private school funds under their control. 

The Headteacher is responsible for ensuring that accurate financial records are maintained and that there are adequate banking procedures in place for all of the private funds. (N.B. except in voluntary aided schools).  The bank account should have three signatories; all should be current employees of the school, and two of whom must sign a cheque before it is valid.  Cheques should never be pre-signed by one signatory. 

The Headteacher also holds the responsibility for ensuring that all private fund accounts are available for annual audit by a suitable and competent individual who is independent of the operation of the private funds.  Ofsted guidelines specifically exclude governors of the school from acting as auditors.

The Headteacher should ensure that the audited accounts are presented annually to the Governing Body on completion of the audit and a minute number should signify that the audited accounts have been formally approved. 

Internal Audit shall, where it is deemed necessary, have unrestricted access to the records of the private funds.

Grants from external bodies (e.g. Central Government) should not, under any circumstances, be paid into private funds. All such funds must be paid into the school budget.

VAT can be recovered on expenditure met from private school funds provided that it has been made on educational items to be used in school. In order for this to be worthwhile the amount of VAT should be at least £20 (which can be on a number of transactions incurred over a period of time).  This does not apply to items purchased for fund raising activities.  Contact the VAT Officer on 01629 538085 for further details.

Firfield Primary School currently has three Private School Fund accounts. 

These are as follows :-

• Lloyds Bank - School Fund
• Lloyds Bank - Trips & Activities
• Lloyds Bank - Breakfast Club