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Educational Management & Administration 0263-211X (200207) 30:3 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi)

Copyright 2002 BELMAS Vol 30(3) 313326; 024484

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Linking Resources to Learning


Conceptual and Practical Problems
Raphael Wilkins

Introduction
The funding of schools in the UK presents the characteristics of an impending earthquake, as incompatible pressures are building within what once appeared to be solid bedrock. Eventually, and probably within the next few years, a dramatic adjustment is likely to take place, producing new fault planes both in government policy, and in opportunities for research and the advancement of theory. What are these incompatible pressures? On the one hand, the government has increased spending on schools, and has exerted stronger control and direction of policy and practice in schools. This combination of policies exemplies the governments much stated desire to achieve something for something in the form of tangible improvements in outcomes in return for increased investment. Consequently the government (and, for that matter, many others involved in educational management) are keen to know more about what works in education funding: what the causal relationships are between various kinds of additional spending and the educational outcomes they purchase. That is one set of forces. Opposed to them is another set of forces that make the vital question about causal relationships virtually unresearchable. This is the immense political commitment which has been made (by the present government as well as by its predecessor) both to the formularization of school funding, and to the delegation of more and more nancial decision-making to schools. The formularization of funding limits the opportunity to research the effects of really signicant differences in funding received by schools, and limits the extent to which funding can be treated as an independent variable. Delegation of nancial management to schools (i.e. site-based management) means that much of the detail of the processes of nancial management is obscured from the prying eyes of researchers, and can only be accessed through the permission, and often the perceptions, of the heads accountable for the expenditure. Under these conditions, it is almost impossible to build up research evidence about the potential merits of funding systems which have a larger unit of nancial management than the individual school, for example, combining the budgets of a number of small schools; or which link funding more to outcomes than inputs, or which involve the experimental exposure of pupils to differing resourcing regimes. The research literature of school resourcing is reective of these tensions. Coleman and Anderson (2000) presented an edited collection of 13 chapters by 19 contributors, including some distinguished names in the eld. The book included Caldwells mapping of

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research on local management, and a discussion by West et al. of the issues in school nancing in England. McAleese contributed from the perspective of his own school, and OSullivan et al. reported their research on the growing role of the bursar. Levai, in her opening chapter (2000), drew attention to the egg-like (my analogy) resourcing structure of schools, in which the yolk of teaching and learning was surrounded by a mass of organizational support; the point being that money spent on the latter could only be justified by how it contributed to the core purpose. This relationship was also illustrated by depicting educational organizations as open systems, in which outputs and outcomes could be related to resourcing decisions, in particular obtaining, allocating and using resources, and evaluating the past use of resources. An arrow connected a box labelled physical environment, administrative services, staff development to a box labelled educational activities i.e. the curriculum, linked by a further arrow to a box labelled educational outputs and outcomes. The limitation of this model is that in itself it throws little light on the processes indicated by the arrows, yet it is important to know something of the range of possibilities at these points of interaction. What choices are available in reality for the exercise of discretion? To what extent can the effects and opportunity costs of these choices be identified and measured? The same chapter reported research, which analysed OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education) reports, and plotted OFSTEDs judgements about resource management against judgements about teaching and learning. This research indicated, unsurprisingly, a positive correlation between these two factors. Leaving aside any scepticism about the evidence base, the tantalizing question is whether this correlation implies a causal relationship, and if so, in which direction the causality operates: which factor is the dependent variable, or are both factors the product of other, unstated, variables? In the English context of site-based management, these issues are not transparent. Much of the research on the benets of site-based management (see e.g. Thomas and Martin, 1996) has relied mainly on the evidence of headteachers and their staffs, who are hardly in a position to be objective. Headteachers, naturally enough, welcome the greater nancial authority which has been given to them, and can produce examples of how this has been used in ways which they and their staffs regard as benecial. There is much less research evidence which is based on independent evaluation of schools nancial acumen, or which measures the costs and benets of site-based management against those which could be gained from other possible models. The research projects reported by Caldwell (2000) do not wholly counter this objection. While the benets of nancial devolution in building the managerial capacity of schools are not disputed, it is important to recognize the critical literature highlighting the limitations of devolution, as exemplied by Smyth (1993) and Ridley (2001). An analysis by Campbell (2001) of the effects of nancial devolution in Scotland reached the following careful conclusion: Importantly, it is apparent that in Scotland, to date, school based management has been linked more concretely to reforming managerial and nancial processes than to directly impacting on educational processes and outcomes. If the continued expansion of school based management is to be encouraged internationally, there needs to be ongoing investigations into the managerial, economic, and fundamentally educational benets associated with this policy and practice. The proposed and actual educational benets of school based management require ongoing research.

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Does the current balance of freedoms and regulations fall between two stools, giving schools insufcient freedom to make radical changes, while giving them just enough power and independence to limit collective action at local education authority level? Questions of this kind cannot be answered from the empirical data currently available. Whatever models are used to depict the linking of resources to learning outcomes, much more needs to be known about how those linkages actually operate in practice. Given the fact of nancial delegation, the key decisions, arguments and analysis take place within the privacy of institutions. Understanding may increasingly depend upon the extent to which headteachers are prepared to share the inner workings of their schools in ways that are both objective and analytically rigorous. This assumes that decisions are made consciously; the reality may be that the decisions, which link resources to learning, are often made instinctively and unconsciously, and to some extent, therefore, will remain difcult to research.

An Investigation
This article reports a two-pronged investigation of these issues in a small local education authority (LEA). The research was conducted within the context of the authoritys planned processes of consultation on school funding issues. The rst of the two lines of investigation was to invite headteachers to share their perceptions of the funding issues for their schools, and in particular to draw attention to how resourcing decisions were driven by educational aims. The investigation originally had a purpose that was policy orientated as well as theoretical. The Borough Council, as LEA, had signicantly increased funding for schools, especially primary schools, in line with national and local political priorities. In order to do this while remaining within overall spending limits, other services across the council, including important services such as social services, had been required to make budget savings. Meanwhile, for various reasons, primary schools collectively were accumulating quite large balances carried forward from one years budget to the next. From the perspective of the councils political decision-makers, there was clearly some sensitivity about proposing more cuts to other services in order to fund further budget increases for schools, when sums equivalent to those cuts were sitting unspent in school bank accounts. Presenting a case for further spending was made harder by the delegated nature of school funding, which meant that increases could really only be expressed in terms of general budget increases across the board, to be used at the discretion of individual schools. Naturally politicians are much happier arguing for money for specic projects. It was hoped that the study would illustrate some of the ways in which increased spending would enable schools to introduce specic improvements directly furthering educational aims. Although it is irrelevant to this investigation, it is only fair to record that the council did in fact go on to make further generous increases in education spending. The second strand of the investigation was to undertake a paper analysis of the publicly available school funding documentation produced by the local education authority. Both of these data sources, together with proposals from the LEA for a revised funding formula, were discussed with headteachers at a conference. This process of investigation helped to identify and clarify issues. In order to illustrate that process, some representative perceptions of headteachers are presented as case studies. These case studies are all from the primary phase. Contributions from headteachers of secondary schools, which were made

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at the conference, are referred to subsequently. First, however, some further explanation is necessary about the process used to elicit these views. The issue was raised in regular meetings of headteachers some months ahead of the planned conference. Among primary headteachers, there was concern that primary school funding issues were not well understood at political level; there was a long-standing sense of frustration with the differential between the funding of the primary and secondary phases, and there was also a long-standing interest in exploring needs-led funding models which would prove the need for additional resources. The concept of demonstrating clearer links at the school level between resourcing decisions and educational aims was discussed. From these early discussions, it was apparent that, while headteachers were clearly knowledgeable and skilful in the nancial management of their schools, they did not generally nd it easy to articulate the links between resourcing decisions and educational aims in a way which would be helpful to political decision-makers. These matters are so much part of school life, and so deeply rooted in the minds of professional educators, that much tends to be done unconsciously, and many decisions taken by instinct rather than analysis. On the other hand, the mechanics of school nance, the application of the formula, the annual budget-setting cycle, the main components of xed and discretionary spending, and the causes of variances were familiar to all, and the issues were perceived as transparent. Generally, headteachers were not easily persuaded to move from technical to philosophical discussion of these issues, except in relation to the two agendas of lessening the primary/secondary differential and the desirability of exploring needs-led models. There were several reasons for this. My perception was that these headteachers were, in the main, hands on people, immersed in and fully stretched by the daily demands of their work. It was not their custom or style to engage in abstract intellectual gymnastics in meetings involving their peers and LEA ofcers. They expected discussions about school funding to be practical, focused upon gures and percentages, and were suspicious of anything that might cloud the issue. I believe that some at least were genuinely mystied as to what kinds of comments or responses were expected of them. To assist the discussion, a conceptual model for linking resources to learning was developed, based on an extension and adaptation of the model proposed by Thomas and Martin (1996: 32). This is shown as Figure 1. The circular boxes labelled learning and resources are copied with only minor modication from Thomas and Martins model. The addition is the central box illustrating that resourcing decisions are of three kinds: how budgets are allocated, how resources and services are procured from those allocated budgets, and how the resources, once procured, are actually deployed. The purpose of this addition is to highlight that decisions about the procurement and deployment of resources may be as important to outcomes as decisions about budget allocations. The elements of the model are linked by budgetary control factors on the one hand and analysis of needs on the other. Decisions about resourcing (allocation, procurement and deployment) involve balancing budgetary constraints against perceived needs in order to achieve the best overall outcome. One of the questions which this investigation sought to illuminate was the extent to which resourcing decisions were driven by an analysis of learning needs. This model was circulated to all headteachers with a view to providing a common framework, to use at their discretion, in discussing the issues at the conference. The primary headteachers, through their own professional group, agreed to produce a representative selection of case studies. These are reported next.

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Nee

needs based analysis

LEARNING

DECISIONS

RESOURCES

teaching

curriculum

allocation procurement

staff (all categories)

support systems

assessment

pastoral

deployment

premises

supplies & services

budgetary control

Figure 1. Linking resources to learning. Adapted from Thomas and Martin, 1996: 32. Notes 1 Decisions about education resourcing often involve balancing learning needs against budgetary controls. 2 Resourcing decisions are of three kinds : how budgets are allocated how resources and services are procured; and how they are deployed 3 Issue: How strongly are resourcing decisions driven by an analysis of learning needs?

Case Studies
School A was a two-form entry junior school of approximately 236 pupils. The headteacher emphasized the averageness of the schools intake, in the sense of a lack of special factors which drew in additional resourcing, and drew particular attention to a stafng structure of 8.6 full-time equivalent teachers, which allowed half a day of release time each week for each department and for the SENCO. Other features mentioned were the sensitivity of the budget to pupil numbers (a cohort uctuation would require a stafng cut), and the use of teaching assistants in all eight classes each morning. A statistical analysis of School A shows that its nancial allocation was largely driven by pupil numbers, as the allocations resulting from the formula factors for free school meals, low prior attainment and English as an additional language were all low in comparison with the other nine junior schools in the group. The pattern of spending per pupil, in comparison with the other junior schools, showed that spending on teaching staff was the highest within the group, while spending on supplies and services was lowest. School A was a medium to low spender on all other categories and overall, in comparison with the group. Site costs were low, and low in relation to the oor area, which determined the funding allocation. All these features entirely conrmed the perceptions of the headteacher. The main features of the spending prole at School A reected the factors built into

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the funding formula, which in turn reected the characteristics of the pupil intake. The main decision taken at school level was to maximize spending on teaching staff, which in turn reected the educational objective of providing an organized system of release time. Within the budgetary control of the schools overall allocation, the headteachers analysis of needs drove the allocation decision to spend more on stafng at the expense of other areas; it also drove the procurement decision to spend that additional funding on a particular combination of teacher and classroom assistant time. Finally, the deployment of the resources procured also followed specic educational strategies that had been agreed within the school. School B was the largest primary school in the LEA, with approximately 542 pupils. The headteachers main perception was that the school was underfunded. Her approach to budgeting was to set an initial budget based on her perceptions of the expenditure needed, which exceeded the actual budget allocated to the school by nearly 100,000. Various measures, all regarded by the headteacher as unsatisfactory, were then set in place to manage this decit. In a context where overall spending on primary education had risen markedly, it is difcult not to suspect that this headteachers dissatisfactions were to some extent self-generated, but they did arise from a clear view of needs, and in part from a justiable concern that large primary schools suffered certain nancial disadvantages. First, the funding formula discriminated against large primary schools through the inclusion of a lump sum that tapered by 100 for each pupil enrolled, reducing this sum in the case of School B to 3,800, the smallest allocation in the LEA. Second, the funding differentials between primary and secondary schools, which were of concern generally to the primary headteachers, were particularly apparent in the case of School B, which was roughly the same size as several of the local secondary schools. Not only were secondary schools more generously funded generally, but the formula provided for small secondary schools to receive an additional allowance of 365 for each pupil on roll below 600. The headteacher pointed out that the school would gain nancially if split into separate infant and junior schools. The strategies cited by the headteacher for remaining within budget included minimal spending on the curriculum, reduced staff development and greatly reduced programmes of site improvement. The school carried forward a substantial balance, caused partly by staff vacancies. An analysis of the statistics shows that the application of the funding formula to School B resulted in above average funding for free school meals and English as an additional language. The expenditure per pupil was below the average for primary schools in this group. Within that low general gure, spending per pupil was above average on teachers, and below average on support staff, learning resources, staff development and very low on grounds maintenance, cleaning and caretaking. This pattern reected the heads stated spending priorities. What she perceived as decit reected the schools decision to spend more on teaching staff, especially special needs teachers, giving the school one of the most favourable pupilteacher ratios in the LEA. The selection of this priority was consistent with the characteristics of the pupil intake as recognized through the funding formula. The process of resource management by School B illustrates one approach to reconciling the two forces shown in Figure 1. Once the needs have been assessed, that is to say, the desired pattern of resource deployment, the consequential preferences for allocation and procurement are incompatible with the available budget, leading to a process of adjustment in which the perceived needs remain the leading factor. In her presentation,

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the head clearly moved through the factors illustrated in Figure 1 from left to right, starting with learning. School C was, by contrast, the smallest mainstream school in the LEA, a village primary school of 82 pupils. The headteacher drew attention to the issues arising from small size, and the demands these placed on staff. The school was organized into three vertically grouped classes, each with a teacher and a full-time classroom assistant, one of whom was part-funded for specic SEN duties. In addition, there was a part-time SENCO, and the headteacher taught in order to provide class contact remission for other members of staff. The headteacher considered that only costly experienced teachers could meet the schools needs, as each teacher also managed three curriculum areas. Despite the village school ethos, and excellent results, the pupils presented a variety of challenges, and the percentage with special educational needs was above average. The headteachers strategy was to maximize spending on staff, and consequently spending on curriculum and premises were very low. The small cohort size (12) meant that uctuations in pupil numbers had disproportionate nancial consequences. The funding statistics show, as might be expected, that the per pupil costs of School C were the highest in the LEA, and that the pupilteacher ratio was among the most favourable in purely numerical terms. Expenditure per pupil on teachers, staff development and administrative staff were the highest in the group of primary schools. Spending on learning resources was very low, and spending on cleaning, caretaking and site improvement was below average. The school carried forward a balance, which was moderate in cash terms. The school received the highest lump sum among primary schools in the LEA, and also the only allocation of an additional lump sum specically for small schools. On the other hand, the school only qualied for very small sums of additional funding for free school meals, low prior attainment, and English as an additional language. The relatively high SEN activity at the school reected the admission of a number of children with statements who triggered resources on an individual rather than formula basis. Given the small size of School C, the resource management options available to the headteacher were limited. The funding formula made allowance for the higher costs of small schools, but was clearly based on the assumption that the conventional village school approaches to teaching, such as vertically grouped classes, would be used. From the headteachers point of view, the deployment of limited resources, including her own time, represented a major part of resourcing decisions. Within the scope available for exible resource allocation and deployment, the approach taken at School C owed naturally from the headteachers views about teaching and learning. School D was a primary school, including nursery, with 370 pupils and a budget of 670,000. The headteacher had seen the introduction of local management of schools (LMS) in 198990 as a watershed, but once the budget had been designed initially, there was little scope for creativity. The previous LEA had introduced a system of activity led stafng (ALS) in 1993, which had given primary schools the opportunity to do developmental work in institutional management. At School D, this had enabled two days per week of release time to be shared among the deputy head and three coordinators, but the funding was not maintained and this provision had to be reduced. The current LEA had increased primary school budgets in 19992000, and this had enabled the appointment of an additional teacher to release the deputy head and other teachers, creating a total of four days per week of release time. This was divided into half

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days and allocated to timetabled activities, including regular sessions for subject coordinators, heads of key stages, and NQTs. In this way, 100 sessions per term were allocated for activities such as planning, assessment, appraisal monitoring, SEN reviews, subject development and booster work. The headteacher placed considerable emphasis on the efcacy of planned release time as a means of achieving learning objectives. Documentary analysis showed School D as spending roughly at the average for its group, having special needs rising from below to above average, and keeping balances well below the somewhat high levels of some schools. The deployment of the budget reected the headteachers stated priority to provide release time for teachers. The headteacher saw the previous LEAs initiative of activity led stafng as an example of needs-led funding, in which he felt a strong interest. The allocation of available funds in ways which would increase release time for specic purposes clearly indicates resourcing decisions being led by an analysis of educational needs.

Summary of Case Studies


These four case studies demonstrated a number of common features. Each of the headteachers displayed accurate perceptions about their schools nancial circumstances, and about their schools position in comparison with others. Each of them had a clear perception of the educational priorities for their school. Each of them had also used the discretion available to them to increase spending on stafng at the expense of other categories. In fact the main, and perhaps only signicant, impact of nancial delegation on resource allocation at these schools was to shift the balance between stafng and non-stafng budgets.

Secondary Perspectives
The perspectives of secondary headteachers differed somewhat from those of their primary colleagues, and were also split between secondary schools which had formerly been grant-maintained (GM, i.e. funded directly by central government and with greater independence than most schools) and those which had formerly been LEA schools. The ex-GM headteachers were particularly aware that the introduction of fair funding by the government had resulted in the loss of certain advantageous elements of their funding. They were also cautious regarding the potential reduction in their freedom following the termination of GM status. Generally they wished to see higher delegation levels to schools, and reductions in central bureaucracy. In discussion it was made clear to them that there was a direct correlation between the level of delegation which could be achieved, and the extent to which they, collectively, were prepared to accept responsibility for meeting the educational needs of the young people in their localities. A signicant part of centrally retained spending was allocated to the education of pupils whose needs the schools could not currently meet, or who required additional support in order to remain in school. The secondary headteachers decided not to prepare specic case studies, but to concentrate on certain points. One emphasized the desirability of a longer planning horizon than one year. Stable and predictable funding would allow better strategic planning. Another argued strongly for more delegation and a review of non-school spending headings, such as college transport. A headteacher of an LEA (i.e. community) school supported higher delegation, linked to buy-back packages for a range of special needs services.

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Perceptions of Need
In discussions at the conference about possible changes to the formula for funding schools, there was support for a number of minor adjustments. Thinking about more radical changes tended to fall into two groups. One group felt that pupil numbers should be given increased emphasis as the determinant of school budgets, with two intended consequences. First, this would reduce the signicance of the special factors, which created a sense of frustration among schools which fell just outside the eligibility criteria. Second, this group argued that the age weighting of pupils should be lessened if not actually abolished. This was seen as a simplied and equitable approach. One headteacher expressed interest in the funding formula for schools being national rather than local. The other main group of views, which in fact upon analysis is not dissimilar to the rst, argued for needs-led funding, a concept which seems to pose a number of practical problems. Interest in needs-led funding is well established, but the question what level of funding does education need? cannot be addressed either through empirical investigation or through rational argument, unless a very limiting view is taken of what constitutes education, and unless the wide disparities of provision in the modern global village are ignored. The answer to this question cannot be divorced from knowledge of historical patterns of spending, and what adjustments to these might be seen as desirable. This process may be informed by empirical evidence of the effects of particular patterns of funding in particular situations, but will always require a value judgement, which in turn has to be balanced against other factors such as opportunity costs. In the world of practical politics, the need to spend on a public service such as a school is dened to match the actual funding provided. Anything beyond this may be desirable but cannot be allowed to be labelled as a necessity, because to do so would raise issues of legal liability. The potential need to spend is limitless: whatever budget is provided, practitioners will soon identify areas which would benet from further enhancement. Yet the needs-led approach was advocated in earnest by a number of heads, people who could not be described as nave. One proposed, Ask schools what they need to run efciently, then give them the money. Others proposed approaches based on certain pupilteacher ratios, class contact remission allocations and numbers of classroom assistants, but recognized the problems that would arise from wide variations in pupil numbers between schools and classes. When experienced heads discuss needs-led funding in this way, it has to be understood as something different from a desire for a blank cheque. While, in a general sense, there can be no empirically derived answer to the question How much funding does a school need?, these headteachers had a sense of educated professional judgement about the resources necessary to deliver the current political expectations of the school system in the schools with which they were familiar. They knew what they needed, but could not imagine or articulate an adequate formula for delivering it. It is interesting to juxtapose this view with one aspect of the governments approach to meeting resourcing needs. The governments many initiatives for school improvement share a common feature. Standards Fund, Summer Schools, Beacon Schools, Specialist Schools, Education Action Zones, Excellence in Cities, City Academies, and even Special Measures are linked by the common characteristic that they circumvent or counteract the effects of formula funding. They simply target resources to where they are needed in order to produce certain outcomes in particular situations. In the case of Standards Fund,

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this method is increasingly being used as a means of universal funding, ensuring that all schools are put in funds for certain desired purposes. For example, when the performance threshold for teachers was introduced, the governments aims were incompatible with the principle that individual school governing bodies should decide how many teachers they want at particular levels of salary grading. Instead, the scheme was open to all experienced teachers who wished to pass the threshold and who were capable of doing so, and the additional salary payments were paid nationally from Standards Fund. If improving the nations schools depends, every time, on nding ways to circumvent and counteract the effects of formula funding, this begins to appear almost like an implicit acceptance by government of the fundamental dysfunctionality of formula funding as the basic method of distributing resources to schools.

Problems and Issues


A desire to link resources to learning, shared by educators and auditors, is not made any easier in the English context by the complexities of the current frameworks for regulating and funding schools. The bulk of school funding is distributed through formulae, which are strongly inuenced by historical patterns of spending. When local management of schools (LMS) was introduced by the Education Reform Act 1988, formulae for apportioning delegated funds were composed through a process which sought to disaggregate each category of spending at local education authority (LEA) level for distribution among schools. The policy aim of the time was to produce structural change (i.e. changing the way in which future decision-making about school funding was to work) with allocative continuity (i.e. limiting the extent of changes to the funding allocations made under the old decision-making system), and indeed the latter was one of the tests of whether a formula was deemed to be satisfactory. This preserved and actually reinforced such historic spending traditions as favouring secondary education with smaller classes, class contact remission and more support staff; increasing spending as the child grows older; and (for children in state schools) spending in inverse proportion to prior attainment, ability and socioeconomic status. Early LMS formulae contained a complex array of factors; the trend over time has been for simplication and for increasing the signicance of pupil numbers. Annual reviews and regulatory changes including the replacement of LMS with Fair Funding have adopted a process of piecemeal and marginal adjustment, which has continued to preserve historical patterns of spending as the principal rationale for how schools are funded. LMS was introduced at a time when what is now known as the school improvement agenda or the standards agenda was virtually absent from the education policy domain. As central government became more concerned with the need to increase attainment, the approach adopted has often been to launch initiatives supported by specic funding sources, most typically Standards Fund, which now provides a signicant addition to school budgets. While the educational agenda for schools is increasingly set by central government policy supported by piecemeal and non-permanent sources of funding, the main funding distribution to schools continues to be formularized around historical patterns of spending. The linking of resources to learning appears to be still at a tentative stage of development at the highest level of policy-making. The UK governments Green Paper Schools: Building on Success (DfEE, 2001) anticipated a simplied replacement for the current system of locally derived formulae. The White Paper Schools: Achieving

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Success (DfES, 2001) announced the governments intention to revise the education Standard Spending Assessments (SSAs) to identify the funding intended for schools, at national and local levels, to require the local publication of this information, and to introduce a reserve power to enable the government, in exceptional circumstances, to direct an LEA to set school budgets at a level determined by the Secretary of State. Taken together with plans already in train to separate the funding of schools from the funding of other LEA functions, this implies a further step towards centralization of resourcing decisions previously taken locally. These proposals do not make any more explicit the connection between the costs of contemporary good practice and the component factors of funding formulae, although the government is known to be actively engaged in research on this issue. In the mean time, if the government has any intention of departing from funding schools mainly on the basis of historical patterns of spending, it has not yet seen any need to raise this as an issue for public debate. A further problem of school funding arises from the tension between a political desire to give nancial rewards for success, and the actual pattern of spending demands. Just as, at the individual level, acute failure by a pupil to engage with the normal process of schooling tends to trigger higher public spending on that pupil, so at the institutional level the heaviest spending is incurred in relation to schools in crisis. This can appear unsatisfactory from the viewpoint of schools where glittering prizes are unattainable, but where exceptionally hard work averts the crises which would trigger substantial support. The funding of special and additional educational needs accounts for a signicant element of education spending. This is by far the largest component of the spending not delegated to schools and, according to the characteristics of pupils, it is also often a sizeable element of spending within school budgets. The funding for special educational needs is, therefore, split between formularized funding, and individualized funding. The formularized funding is primarily to meet needs expressed in fairly general terms, and may be based on indices of prior attainment, or proxy measures such as entitlement to free school meals, or a combination of factors. The study conducted by West et al. (2000) concluded that free school meals used alone as an indicator of special and additional educational needs did not adequately reect the needs of pupils. Other studies include Sharp (2000), who examined the allocation of resources for learning support in secondary schools, and argued that prior attainment and direct audits of need were better than socioeconomic indices. Marsh (2000) compared the approaches used by two LEAs for funding non-statemented special educational needs. One authority conducted a detailed audit of individual pupils, while the other used indices of prior educational attainment. The latter was a cruder measure, and hence less accurate, while the former demanded much time to operate. Finally, the funding of schools is analytically problematical because, in terms simply of money, resource deployment decisions are usually a minor factor in determining overall educational success. Stafng costs are the largest element in any school budget, and salaries do not vary greatly. The enormous variation is in the calibre and effectiveness of staff, both as individuals and as teams. Poor teaching is not necessarily cheaper than inspiring teaching; two schools, one with exemplary leadership and the other lacking any sense of direction, may show identical nancial accounts for this function; and confrontational relationships are neither cheaper nor more expensive than mutual respect. The most important factor is how resources, in the wider sense of people, facilities, time and data, are used: the problem which then arises is whether it is possible to distinguish

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school resource management as a separate eld of enquiry from school management and leadership generally. OFSTED appears not to attempt to do so, but rather to adopt the view that a school which is good (in OFSTEDs terms) must, by denition, be offering good value for money, and vice versa. While at the detailed level of, for example, comparative costs of procurement, or success in fund-raising, there will of course be variations in nancial efciency between institutions, at the strategic level it is difcult to see much scope for separating judgements about resource management from judgements about other aspects of school management and leadership. It is difcult to disentangle the particular and specic contribution of money to effective school practice. Even where a specically funded project has been evaluated and found to be successful, doubt must remain about how much of the success derived from the uncosted motivation and creativity of the teachers involved, and about whether the same money applied to similar work elsewhere would produce the same level of success.

Ways Forward
In this context of practical and conceptual difculties regarding the relationship between resources and learning, there are a number of possible ways forward. The governments current interest in promoting greater diversity among schools, particularly at the secondary phase, could be interpreted as an invitation to greater self-conscious diversity in schools patterns of resource allocation and deployment. These patterns could be linked to the adoption of a particular character or ethos, as different schools overtly choose different mixes of stafng levels, class sizes, ICT use, extended school days, supported individual study, work-based learning and so on. A related issue is the distribution of spending over the school career of the individual pupil: whereas traditionally more money is spent on older pupils, some teachers now argue that a better return on investment would be achieved by spending more when the pupils are younger. Some schools might want to adopt that approach as their distinctive character. Most futures thinking (see e.g. Kerry, 2000) in education assumes radically different approaches to schooling which will bring with them patterns of resource allocation which will need to differ markedly from those used at present. It would be a timely development for the government to encourage an element of deliberate experimentation in this direction, linked to external evaluations. The primary schools studied in this investigation had accumulated balances for a number of reasons, which included difculties in recruiting staff. Another reason, however, was that heads felt cautious about whether or not increases in funding would prove to be a stable trend or would, instead, be followed by budget reductions. This caution was born of experience. The main additional resource heads wanted was increases in their stafng, but they were reluctant to make permanent appointments unless future funding was guaranteed. Yet this reluctance made it harder to present a case that the schools needed the money. One way forward in such circumstances would be for schools to make more use of time-limited pilot projects, linked to external evaluation, which make effective use of short-term funding while gathering evidence to argue the case for permanent funding. In circumstances where schools have accumulated substantial balances, but are seeking budget growth, using part of the balances for short-term projects that demonstrate the benets of the desired growth can enhance the same approach. There is also scope for more collaboration between schools to fund worthwhile projects which would be beyond the capacity of a single school. Two of the schools in this investigation (not

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reported as case studies) had pooled resources to appoint a half-time homeschool liaison teacher: a striking example of a resourcing decisions being led by identied educational needs. One of the factors which does not help the development of longer term strategic approaches to resourcing is the split between regular funding and unpredictable, timelimited specic grants, which now form a sizeable element of overall school resourcing. If the government moves to a national funding formula for schools, it would be helpful for this to embrace, as far as possible, all anticipated sources of funding. There is also a need for an increase in the commissioning of independent evaluations of initiatives and programmes that target additional resources to secure particular outcomes, so that more information can be available about the relative value for money of different approaches. For some categories of activity, there needs to be greater recognition that individual schools (especially small primary schools) may not represent the optimum nancial unit, and that much more could be achieved by pooling resources among a local network of schools. Education Action Zones have demonstrated the benets and cost-effectiveness of this kind of collaboration. In conclusion, the previous discussion can be summarized by arguing that one overarching development is needed if resourcing is to be linked more effectively to learning. The debate about school resourcing needs a shift in emphasis, away from the language of apportionment and towards the language of outcomes.

References
Caldwell, B. (2000) Local Management and Learning Outcomes: Mapping the Links in Three Generations of International Research, in M. Coleman and L. Anderson (eds) Managing Finance and Resources in Education, pp. 2430. London: Paul Chapman. Campbell, C. (2001) School Based Management: An Evaluation of Policy and Practice in Scotland, International Studies in Educational Administration 29(1): 218. Coleman, M. and Anderson, L., eds (2000) Managing Finance and Resources in Education. London: Paul Chapman. Department for Education and Employment (2001) Schools: Building on Success, Cm 5050. London: HMSO. Department for Education and Skills (2001) Schools: Achieving Success, Cm 5230. London: HMSO. Kerry, T. (2000) Surviving the Future: Changing Education in a Changing World, Working Paper, 40. Lincoln: University of Lincolnshire and Humberside Faculty of Business and Management. Levai, R. (2000) Linking Resources to Learning Outcomes, in M. Coleman and L. Anderson (eds) Managing Finance and Resources in Education, pp. 323. London: Paul Chapman. McAleese, K. (2000) Budgeting in Schools, in M. Coleman and L. Anderson (eds) Managing Finance and Resources in Education, pp. 13247. London: Paul Chapman. Marsh, A. (2000) Resourcing the Continuum of Special Educational Needs in Two Local Education Authorities, Educational Management & Administration 28(1): 7788. OSullivan, F., Thody, A. and Wood, E. (2000) The Role of the Bursar, in M. Coleman and L. Anderson (eds) Managing Finance and Resources in Education, pp. 14867. London: Paul Chapman. Ridley, K. (2001) The Mirage of School Autonomy, Education Today 51(1): 3640. Sharp, S. (2000) Allocating Resources for Learning Support: A Case Study, Educational Management & Administration 28(2): 21122. Smyth, J., ed. (1993) A Socially Critical View of the Self-Managing School. London: Falmer.

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Thomas, H. and Martin, J. (1996) Managing Resources for School Improvement. London: Routledge. West, A., Pennell, H., West, R. and Travers, T. (2000) Financing School-Based Education in England: Principles and Problems, in M. Coleman and L. Anderson (eds) Managing Finance and Resources in Education, pp. 5980. London: Paul Chapman.

RAPHAEL WILKINS,

Correspondence to: 20 Church Lane, Bromley Common, Bromley, Kent BR2 8LB, UK. [email: Raphael.Wilkins@btinternet.com]

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