Financial Management Standard in Schools (FMSiS) Update

Schools in the Northern and Central Area and Early Volunteers from the Western Area

Unless you inform us to the contrary, we will assume that schools working on the submission of FMSiS portfolios by March 2009 will require Children's Services Finance staff to undertake your FMSiS external assessment. Please would you notify us by 19^th December 2008 if you intend to use one of the third party providers listed on the Department for Children Schools and Families' Value for Money website. (Links via www.fmsis.info).

Please note that there are still places on FMSiS workshops on September 8^th & 12^th, and October 7^th & 22^nd. Bookings should be made through the training team, contact Richard Boyd, telephone 01603 223390 or by email.

Useful documents, checklists and pro formas for policies may be found on the efs website http://efs.norfolk.gov.uk under A-Z, FMSiS.

Schools in the Western Area

Western area schools have been asked to achieve the Standard by March 2010. Free overview sessions have been arranged in the Autumn term as an introduction to the Standard; Wednesday, 15^th October at the West Norfolk Professional Development Centre, King's Lynn, and Thursday, November 6th at the Ecotech Centre in Swaffham. Both sessions start at 9.30 and will last for about an hour and a half and both are suitable for school staff and governors. Please book through the training team as above.

Children's Services Finance may also be able to arrange a cluster session for your school if you can provide a venue and sufficient numbers. Please contact Judith Hall on telephone 01603 222543 or by email to discuss.

For governors not able to attend during the day, there will also be two governors' overviews in the evenings at the WNPDC in the autumn term. Letters will be sent to the Chair of Governors and the Chair of Finance of each school with full details.

Dates of FMSiS workshops in the West will be published in the financial training brochure for 2009/10, which will be available in Spring term 2009.

Assessment Update

In August, the Chief Finance Officer (CFO) for Norfolk signed a certificate, which had to be returned to the Department for Children Schools and Families. This was an assurance statement that the local authority has put in place arrangements to ensure that all its schools meet the Financial Management Standard and to remedy identified shortfalls. The certificate reported that 96 primary and special schools and 50 secondary schools have achieved the Standard. Although this number fell short of the suggested 40% of primary and special schools for the first year, it represents a significant beginning. Many schools that went through the process reported improved procedures, a greater awareness of roles and responsibilities and better financial controls.

Congratulations to all the schools that worked for and achieved their FMSiS accreditation, which includes some of Norfolk's smallest primaries. The second tranche of schools will provide a challenging workload for assessors, as the target is to have 76% of our schools at the required Standard in the next year. Please would you let Judith Hall know as soon as possible if there are likely to be any difficulties in achieving the scheduled dates.

DCSF Evaluation of the FMSiS Implementation

The DCSF has recently commissioned Hedra (a consultancy company which specialises in the public sector) to undertake a review of the implementation of FMSiS. The key objective is to inform the Department's future policy on FMSiS by identifying:

How well FMSiS has been implemented;

What problems and issues have been encountered to date;

How such problems and issues have been addressed;

The success (or otherwise) of different forms of assessment;

Whether the level of the Standard should be re-assessed;

Good practice case studies, based on local authorities' and schools' experiences.

Norfolk was one of 14 local authorities, which volunteered to take part in this process, giving us the welcome opportunity to provide the Hedra consultant with information on the implementation in Norfolk and offer feedback from our schools. Progress in achieving and working towards the Standard clearly demonstrated that Norfolk's schools compared very favourably with those in other authorities and that our implementation process provided a good balance between support for schools and compliance with the requirements. A report from the evaluation will be available later in the autumn term on request from Judith Hall.

Deferring Schools

Some schools in the Eastern and Southern areas are still working towards achieving the Standard. We will contact all of these schools separately to discuss the progress being made and the dates for completion.

Secondary Schools

All secondary schools are due to be re-assessed by March 2010. Although the Standard has not changed, the format of the assessment form is different; some of the sections have additional questions and some of the documents have been renamed.

We have organised some FMSiS workshops in 2009 at the Professional Development Centre in Norwich, which would be suitable as a refresher. The dates are March 24^th & 25^th 2009. Further dates in Norwich and King's Lynn will be published in the 2009/10 finance training brochure. Bookings may be made via Richard Boyd as above. Please contact Judith Hall for further information.