Originally published 3rd March 2023 and updated 29th January 2026.
Benchmarking can be beneficial as a strategic tool to improve performance, ensure accountability, and make informed decisions.
Benchmarking is a one of many tools available for Trustees and Senior Leaders to understand the financial performance of their academy trusts and individual schools compared to statistical neighbours.
It can be used to:
- establish a system of measures for school leaders, which can be used to identify best practice.
- support decision making.
- provide comparative information to help in future planning.
- share knowledge and best practices in a confidential environment.
Benchmarking may not always have the answers, but it will provide a useful insight into how the trusts and its schools compare to statistical neighbours, helping trusts to identify areas that may be of a higher than average spend.
It is important to remember that many benchmarking tools use historic data and may not always represent the current situation. Nevertheless, it is an important exercise for trusts to undertake.
Benchmarking is an area of work that many of you will have completed in the past and are familiar with. The DfE has changed the way you access this information in the form of the new ‘The Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool.’
Following feedback from school finance and business professionals as well as school resource management advisors, the DfE has developed a brand-new benchmarking service – the Financial Benchmarking and Insights tool (FBIT). This comprehensive solution combines the best features of Schools Financial Benchmarking (SFB) and View My Financial Insights (VMFI), allowing you to conduct all of your benchmarking activities in one place. The tool provides tailored insights based on school-specific data and highlights areas for investigation and improvement. It allows comparison of performance against 30 of the most statistically similar schools and will indicate areas where spend in higher than neighbours, where there may be opportunities for savings and efficiencies. It provides users with an automated assessment of their data compared with similar schools. It will identify areas with the biggest variance compared to other schools and hence will give a starting point of areas to investigate – which might lead to improved resource management – leading to better results for their pupils.
The tool is is very flexible as it will also allow users to choose which schools the data is provided for and which criteria for comparison to use, allowing different modelling scenarios.
School resource management self-assessment checklist
This self-assessment checklist helps academy trusts check they are managing resources effectively and identify any adjustments they need to make. All academy trusts that have an open academy must complete the self-assessment checklist each year. The checklist helps governing bodies and trust boards to
check they have appropriate financial management and governance arrangements in place; that they are meeting the right standards to achieve a good level of financial health and resource management; it helps to identify areas for change to make sure resources are used to support high-quality teaching and the best education outcomes for pupils. The checklist helps trusts identify areas for potential improvement in their resource management. It also provides assurance to DfE that trusts have the right processes, systems, and structures in place to help them achieve a good level of financial health and resource management.
The checklist was previously part of the school resource management self-assessment tool (SRMSAT).
Internal benchmarking
Many academy trusts are starting to benchmark internally, comparing real-time information in schools across the trust. This is particularly helpful where schools have local budgets and local decisions on use of suppliers etc. This can provide good examples of best practice across trusts and enable sharing of resources and strong policy across an academy trust.
The role of benchmarking in budget setting
As trusts start to think more about budget setting, benchmarking can be a really helpful tool.
- using benchmarking you can compare staff costs and structure to other comparable schools – allowing school leaders to manage resources to support high quality teaching to get the best education for pupils.
- connecting with other schools to learn from their successes or even their challenges will be beneficial.
- comparing premises costs to other similar schools – and maybe pooling resources.
- comparing occupancy costs such as energy and water. Again – connecting with other schools could help in this area.
- comparing supplies and services with other schools.
Benchmarking – wider contexts
It is important to remember that there is not always a right or wrong way for trusts and schools to be spending money, as schools will all have different priorities. It is however a useful exercise to understand how the school compares to statistical neighbours, and whether areas of larger spend are understood within both the school’s content and the wider financial climate.
Blog authored by Fiona Clain and Louise Shaw.
