While trust leaders are slightly more confident about schools’ financial futures than 12 months ago, that comes at the cost of cutbacks in both classroom and back office roles and dipping into trust reserve funds.
Despite the pressures, trusts say they remain focused on improving the quality of education, with providing inclusive education and improving pupil outcomes identified as key strategic priorities in the Confederation of School Trust’s National School Trust Survey.
The survey is organised by CST, the sector body and membership organisation for trusts, together with Edurio, leaders in school stakeholder feedback.
Nearly 400 trust chief executives took part in this year’s survey, which found that:
- Ensuring inclusive education, including for special educational needs, is the top education priority for more than three-quarters of trusts, with attendance (64%), narrowing the attainment gap (50%), and assessment (45%) also key areas
- Trust leaders are slightly more confident about the financial sustainability of their trusts than in last year’s survey, but balancing budgets (84%) and cost reduction (69%) remain the top financial priorities
- Over half of trusts are considering cuts to classroom staff to balance the books, with 60% looking at reducing teaching assistant hours, and 54% reducing overall teacher numbers. A third of trusts are looking at school leadership changes, and one in five at reducing trust support and leadership posts
- Trusts are looking at artificial intelligence to transform how they work, with two thirds reporting pilots and experiments in the tech – twice as many as last year. AI is being used to minute meetings, analyse data, generate policies and reports, and more
- Attendance remains a priority for trusts, with a wide range of approaches. Leaders report that targeted interventions for at-risk pupils, monitoring and tracking, and parental engagement are the most likely to be impactful
- With the government focusing on breakfast clubs, trusts are already offering a wide range of wrap around care for pupils. 97% of trusts offer some form of activities before or after school, with a mix of free and paid for food and activities
- Most trusts are hoping to grow in the next year, with 59% expecting to add schools – with most expecting to open or add three schools. One in six trusts is considering a merger with another trust
- Trusts continue to be highly collaborative, with around nine out of 10 providing support to schools outside their own trust.
- CST Chief Executive Leora Cruddas CBE said: “Improving education on behalf of children is the mission that drives trust forward, but that work depends on the same things as any large organisation: funding, people, and our ways of working.
“For the second year, financial sustainability has emerged as the top priority for school trust leaders in our annual survey. While inflationary pressures have lessened slightly, more than four in five trusts tell us they are looking at reductions in staffing and reducing costs, as well as innovating using emerging new technologies to save staff time.
“This is all change with a purpose: to continue the mission of trusts to build an always-improving, brilliant education system for our children.”
Ernest Jenavs, Co-Founder of Edurio said: "The survey found that, after many years of it being a prominent issue in the sector, fewer CEOs are concerned about recruitment and retention – unfortunately that seems to be because trusts are having to reduce staff costs because of budgets, and looking ahead to falling pupil rolls in the future.
“We also found that the adoption of artificial intelligence tools is rapidly accelerating and potentially wide-reaching, touching every area of what schools and trusts do. This is something to keep a careful watch on.”
This is the fourth year the survey has been run, with the full survey report delivering a unique picture of the state of the country’s schools and trusts.
Trust accounting officers – those responsible to Parliament for the running of trusts, usually the trust’s chief executive – were invited to complete an online survey in June 2024.
