The brief
The federation had built up its support services one step at a time. As local authority support fell away, it took on HR, payroll oversight, health and safety, data protection and estates management itself, and the roles covering them had stretched to fit. The three settings also sit under different governance and funding rules, which adds to the load.
Leaders wanted an independent view on whether the model was still effective, resilient and affordable, and what structure they would need for the next five years.
How we approached it
We reviewed structures, role profiles, staffing and cost data, interviewed leaders and staff across finance, HR, IT and estates, and spent time on each site to see how the work actually gets done.
Each function was then tested against three questions:
- What must be in place for compliance and resilience?
- What should change to make better use of people and money?
- What could the federation develop over time?
From that we built a reconciled baseline of the whole support establishment, around 27 FTE and £1.2m a year, so every option could be compared against the same numbers.
What we found
The federation did not lack capability. The problem was where that capability was being used:
- Senior specialists and the director were being pulled into day-to-day processing, leaving little time for planning and assurance.
- Finance and HR work was spread across mixed roles in different offices, which made it harder to keep consistent and harder to cover.
- Too much knowledge sat with a few individuals.
- Estates delivery on the ground was sound, but there was no protected capacity for estates strategy.
Options and recommendation
We set out six options, from keeping the current model to outsourcing strategic functions or, in the longer term, forming or joining a multi-academy trust. Each was costed and assessed for risk.
We recommended bringing finance and HR together into single federation-wide services, keeping reception and family-facing administration in each school, and adding dedicated strategic estates and IT capacity. It was an honest answer rather than a cost-cutting one: the preferred model adds about 8% to the recurring cost, and the report explains what that money buys.
What the federation received
Governors received a clear preferred model, a costed comparison of the alternatives, and a phased route to implementation with assurance checks at three and six months. The academy trust option was kept on the table as a separate, longer-term decision, to follow once the new structure is working.
