Before we begin, Warren Porter ACMA, Head of Education Strategy at IMP Software, explores the key challenges MAT CFOs face during the budget finalisation and review period – from inconsistent data to time-consuming reporting. Join our upcoming webinar to learn more and get access to our free MAT budget review excel tool.
Budget management is nothing new for MAT CFOS, but many we speak to say this year feels different. The usual pressures haven’t gone away, but the gap between funding and cost is widening, and the financial headroom to manage those pressures is shrinking fast.
The latest Schools Costs Technical Note suggests there is just 1.3% headroom for teacher and support staff pay awards, yet the government is suggesting a 2.8% pay rise for teachers in 2025/26, and National Employers have offered 3.2% for support staff.
Many Trusts tell us the latest NICs grant doesn’t cover the cost increase. This and other factors leave leaders with tough choices to make.
Budget management has always been a leadership responsibility, but in this climate, it’s more critical than ever. It’s not just about balancing books or ticking boxes. It’s about using your limited resources in a way that protects educational delivery, supports strategic priorities, and ensures your Trust remains financially resilient.
After spending months building detailed budgets, it’s easy for the review stage to become isolated and fragmented. But how do you know your budgets are deliberately targeting the areas of greatest priority, while staying sustainable and working within the limits of your available funding? How easy is it to spot areas of inefficiency or low-hanging fruit across the Trust? And how do you communicate and align stakeholders behind the plan, ensuring that everyone is pulling in the same direction?
One approach we’re seeing more and more Trusts adopt is MAT-level benchmarking. And it’s proving to be an essential part of the budgeting toolkit – especially in challenging times like these.
Benchmarking: Not Just Analysis – A Catalyst for Better Decisions
By comparing schools across your own MAT – particularly by similar school type – you get a much clearer picture of how resources are being used, where inefficiencies might lie, and where conversations need to happen. Comparing by similar school type is crucial because it ensures you’re comparing ‘apples to apples’ – not schools that operate in different phases or have significantly different pupil demographics, which can skew results and make comparisons less meaningful.
Sharing this view with school leaders can also open up constructive dialogue and knowledge sharing to support an overall approach to resource planning.
Here are some of the key areas we see MATs focusing on when comparing schools in their Trust:
1. Total Income and Expenditure Profiles
Provides a high-level view of how funding and spending are distributed across your schools. Comparing similar schools can highlight where one might be over- or under-resourced, prompting deeper conversations about funding formulas and strategic alignment.
How it can help: Ensures funding reflects need and strategic priorities, not just historical precedent.
2. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as Staff Costs as a Percentage of Revenue
Staffing is your biggest cost. This KPI helps you understand whether staffing levels are sustainable, particularly when viewed against income. It also acts as an early warning indicator for financial pressure. The IMP MAT Finance Sector Insight Report 2024 shows that Trusts hitting the ‘magic’ 80% or less on staffing costs were projecting a surplus in future years, whereas those above 80% were projecting a deficit, demonstrating the significant impact that managing staff costs effectively can have on long-term financial health.
The really proactive MATs are now using ICFP (Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning) to dig deep into staff deployment, delivering even richer and more transparent data to support resourcing decisions. By bringing together curriculum needs with financial constraints, ICFP allows Trusts to optimise staffing levels in a way that aligns with both educational objectives and financial sustainability.
How it can help: Helps maintain financial sustainability and allows for proactive resource allocation and workforce planning.
3. Pupil-to-Adult Ratios, Segmented by Role Type
By breaking down pupil-to-adult ratios by role (e.g. teachers, TAs, support staff), Trusts can evaluate their delivery models more effectively. This helps ensure staffing is aligned with both educational needs and affordability.
How it can help: It encourages consistent, cost-effective approaches to staffing across the Trust, and anomalies can be contextualised in line with pupil demographics, their needs, and other relevant factors. Remember, there may be a deliberate and legitimate reason why things look ‘different’!
4. Per-Pupil Income and Expenditure
Shows how much each school receives and spends per pupil. When compared across schools with similar contexts, it highlights inconsistencies and supports fairness in funding and expenditure decisions.
How it can help: Drives equity across the Trust, informs the development of sustainable funding models, highlights rogue expenditure, reveals opportunities for sharing knowledge and resources, and uncovers low-hanging fruit for cost-saving or efficiency improvements.
Internal vs External Benchmarking: Why You Need Both
It’s important to make the distinction between internal and external benchmarking. Internal comparisons can highlight schools that are out of line with your Trust’s own norms. But ‘better than average’ doesn’t always mean ‘good’. Without external benchmarks, it’s easy to assume that internal efficiency equals best practice.
That said, there are limitations with benchmarking, particularly when using datasets that are historical and generalised. For example, external data is often broad, meaning it may not reflect the nuances of the school types you’re comparing against. Schools in similar phases or demographics may differ greatly in terms of need, which can make comparisons misleading.
We’re seeing more Trusts use external benchmarking to set informed aspirations and targets, not as a rigid standard but as a starting point. They know their schools better than anyone else, and by applying local context (like school improvement needs, pupil demographics, or strategic goals), they create benchmarks that are both ambitious and realistic.
That’s why using both internal and external data is key: Internal benchmarking helps you spot internal inconsistency and drive Trust-wide alignment. External benchmarking provides broader context and acts as a sense-check on internal assumptions. Together, they support more nuanced, confident decision-making.
IMP Planner: Streamlining Data and Insights for Smarter Budgeting
To make benchmarking easier and more impactful, IMP Planner is designed to pull together all the relevant data you need, in one place. With IMP Planner, you can easily group your schools by type and generate reports across all the key areas mentioned above – plus much more – all at the click of a button.
IMP Planner simplifies the complex task of managing and comparing data, so you can focus on making better decisions, not sorting through spreadsheets.
Free Toolkit: Our MAT Budget Overview
To support this work, we’ve developed a free MAT Budget Overview Toolkit. It allows you to upload your schools’ budget data and instantly generate comparisons across your Trust – grouped by school type and key metrics. It’s simple to use, quick to set up, and designed to give you visibility that drives better conversations and better decisions.
Final Thought
In a climate where financial headroom is scarce and scrutiny is high, the ability to benchmark – both internally and externally – is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s essential. If you want to plan with confidence, align your spending with your strategic goals, and make the most of every pound across your Trust, then now is the time to embed benchmarking into your budgeting process.
This blog is part of our 2025 budget review and finalisation series, where we’re helping MAT CFOs finalise their budgets and submit their BFR with confidence. Explore our range of resources:
Webinar: Smarter Budget Reviews: Strengthen Your Budget Decisions with Trust-Wide Benchmarking and Our Free Excel Tool – Join here
Webinar: Finalise Your Budgets and Submit Your BFR with Confidence – Join here
