As schools and trusts grow and undergo changes, financial due diligence has become an invaluable exercise. Especially when budgets are tight, knowing how your school or trust stacks up financially is essential. Benchmarking is an impactful tool, providing leaders and governors with a clearer picture of how money is being spent, what is working, and where there might be pressure points or untapped potential.
With this valuable data and learned insights, you can make confident, informed decisions for your school or trust. In this guide, learn what benchmarking in schools is, the benefits of financial benchmarking and the common mistakes to avoid.
What Benchmarking for Schools Really Tells You
Benchmarking is the process of comparing your school or trust to others with similar characteristics, including phase, size, location, or funding arrangements. But the goal isn't simply to measure; it's to understand what the data is telling you.
Done properly, benchmarking in schools can reveal:
- Where resources might be stretched too thin
- Areas of spend that are out of step with similar institutions
- Long-term trends that could affect financial stability
What financial benchmarking does is turn raw data into something meaningful, so you can plan, adjust, and make more informed decisions for your school or trust.
More Than Compliance - Why Financial Benchmarking Matters
Benchmarking is often treated as just another reporting requirement, but it's more valuable when used as a strategic tool. When you use it properly, it supports better planning, sharper decisions, and long-term thinking.
Here's how it helps:
- It highlights where your spending patterns differ from others and whether those differences make sense
- It gives governors and leaders evidence to support difficult choices. This helps build trust with stakeholders and governing bodies
- If your trust is growing or taking on new schools, benchmarking is a crucial part of financial due diligence in education. You can use the data to check financial compatibility and support merger or acquisition decisions
- It helps you assess whether your staffing, curriculum, and spending models are sustainable, and how they compare with similar schools
- It allows you to justify funding requests or investment decisions with data-backed insights
Key Signals to Pay Attention To
Benchmarking can flag problems before they get out of hand. Here's a few indicators to keep an eye out for:
- Rising leadership costs vs falling pupil numbers
- Continual in-year deficits without a recovery plan
- Increased dependency on agency staff over permanent hires
- Imbalanced spending on admin functions
One red flag isn't always a crisis, but multiple red flags should prompt a closer look.
What to Benchmark (And Why It Matters)
There's no one-size-fits-all, but most effective reviews focus on:
- Staff structure and cost as a % of income
- Leadership-to-classroom staffing ratio
- Premises spend per pupil
- Pupil-teacher ratios
- Teaching vs. support staff staffing costs
- Curriculum delivery cost
- Supply staff and temporary cover spend
- Reserves and in-year surpluses and deficits
When benchmarking, look beyond national averages by using data from schools or trusts with a comparable profile.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Benchmarking is powerful, but only if done thoughtfully. Common mistakes include:
- Using poor comparison groups - A small rural primary and a large urban secondary won't offer useful benchmarks for one another
- Treating it as a one-off task - Financial conditions change, and so should your benchmarking
- Ignoring what the figures mean in practice - Raw numbers can mislead without proper context, especially when unusual circumstances (like a new build) affect the data
Benchmarking During Growth and Due Diligence
If your trust is expanding or merging, financial benchmarking is essential.
It can highlight:
- Liabilities and cost pressures before they impact group finances
- Surpluses that could be better used across the trust
- Opportunities to harmonise spending and reduce duplication
Without this insight, financial issues can remain hidden until they're much harder to resolve. Financial benchmarking can also support conversations with the DfE and ESFA while demonstrating your academy's financial accountability, resilience and stability in the education sector.
Using The DfE Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool
We recommend using the DfE's Financial Benchmarking Tool, which allows you to benchmark at school, local authority, or trust level. Anyone can access it across England, though you will need a DfE Sign-in account to access some parts of the service.
Get Tailored Support from School Finance Experts
Benchmarking is all about understanding where your school or trust stands and what comes next. The real value lies in the questions it prompts and the conversations it supports.
The right benchmarking process can help your leadership team make informed, timely decisions with confidence. Not just this year, but also for the years to come.
However, not every school or trust has the internal resources to dive deep into financial benchmarking and due diligence in education. That's where our team of experienced school finance professionals come in.
We provide:
- Expert guidance on benchmarking for schools and multi-academy trusts, built on years of leadership experience in the education industry
- Support in making sense of complex financial patterns
- Strategic advice to inform future financial planning
- An objective, informed perspective rooted in deep sector knowledge
Book a free, no-obligation consultation with one of our school finance specialists. We keep it simple; no jargon, just clear, actionable insights to help you take the next step with confidence.
Find out more about our finance and interim support.
Contact us today to learn more about our services.