An Adventure in Education by Derek Esp

Author:Derek Esp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2019-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

6

the audit commission

and other ‘excursions’

In 1981, I was one of two education officers seconded to the Audit Commission to advise on their study of non-teaching costs in secondary schools. The commission itself was a newly established body. Its controller was John Banham. The other education officer seconded for this study was Chris Tipple, director of education in Northumberland. Subsequently our appointment was announced by The Times Educational Supplement on 18th May 1984 thus: ‘Just in case the city gents from Deloitte didn’t appreciate the delicate relationship between caretakers and the teaching process, the commission arranged for the secondment of a couple of LEA bureaucrats… to assist them with this gap in their adult education.’ We worked alongside a team from Deloitte Haskins and Sells.

The study had been established to look at value for money in secondary schools. At that time, in an education spend on secondary education of £3.7 billion, £1.25 billion was being spent on non-teaching staff, premises, supplies and transport. We were to provide an audit guide following fieldwork in twelve local education authorities, looking at a sample of secondary schools within each one. In the fieldwork I was teamed up with Leila Fanous, who had banking experience and knowledge of independent school budgets. In an article for Education magazine in May 1984, I recorded my impressions at the time. There was a general willingness by head teachers and education officers to seek more effective ways of managing the service. Pressures on local education authorities and schools were exacerbated by sudden decisions to freeze staff vacancies. Such policies to achieve short term economies could be at the cost of efficiency and effectiveness. Even within this group of twelve LEAs there were great variations in the funds available for education, straining relationships between education officers and schools.

I found the definitions used by the Audit Commission very helpful in terms of reviewing budgets. The ‘three Es’ of economy, efficiency and effectiveness were all to be examined in any urgent reviews. Economy could not be allowed to create inefficiencies or damage the effectiveness of the service provided to the public. The study made a significant case for the delegation of budgets to schools. The Audit Commission experience proved invaluable later for my implementation of a scheme in Lincolnshire. My own education was not confined to the boundaries of my professional life. Continuing education, lifelong education, informal education and community education are terms that recognise the wider context in which we learn. We talk about learning for life when the whole of life is learning. Since 1970, our family life had been focused on the village of Hinton St George in Somerset. When I moved to work in the Somerset education department we rented the schoolhouse at Hinton as a temporary measure until our Devon house was sold. For a period of six years we were drawn into the permanent life of the village and eventually bought a cottage in West Street, moving house with the help of several friends and the pub beer trolley.

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