Blog

By the time a budget reaches the board, most of the technical work has already taken place. Assumptions have been tested, staffing plans reviewed, income lines checked, pressure points discussed and draft positions refined with senior leaders and finance colleagues.

The remaining challenge is not simply to present the numbers accurately. It’s to help trustees understand what those numbers mean.

For small academy trusts, budget season is rarely just about the numbers. It can also be about keeping the trust steady, giving trustees confidence, and avoiding that sinking feeling when the best laid plans start to go awry.

The real value of a three-year forecast isn’t that it predicts the future perfectly. It’s that it helps trusts prepare for it more intelligently. Here's a deep-dive on the wins that CFOs can seek out.

This playbook offers viable steps for MATs to improve their financial planning power: turning a difficult outlook into a deliberate, multi-year plan that trustees, heads and finance teams can understand and own.

Change is sometimes the only constant for academy trusts in England. Increasingly, we're finding that spreadsheet-led budgeting is no longer cutting it for many schools and trusts across the country. So, with this in mind, we've shared four realistic, low-disruption actions that finance leaders can take this term to move beyond spreadsheets – improving control, reducing risk and building confidence with trustees and schools.

In this blog, we harness insights from Anago's CEO, Ninette van der Velden, as a base to explore MAT maturity: what it takes to move from slow and steady to strategic authority – and how the right tools and support can unlock a maturity shift that is felt all the way to the classroom.

While facing higher expectations from stakeholders, academy trust leaders also find themselves dealing with higher utilities, transport and support costs. It's a unique situation - and a challenging one, too. With income generation becoming increasingly important to academy trust budgets, here are some key talking points to consider during strategic discussions.

A new school year is a good time for multi-academy trusts to reflect on the year that was, and use those insights for future budget planning. Here are some important questions that should be asked.

This blog explores the quiet role trust plays in financial planning systems and why building confidence, not just capability, is the key to moving forward.

Budgeting is no longer just a back-office task. For MATs, it’s becoming the backbone of strategic leadership. With pressures building across the board, many trusts are feeling the strain.

In this blog, we explore how the landscape is changing in 2025 and what MATs can do to stay one step ahead.

For many MATs, budgeting still means reacting to problems as they arise. But with rising pressure and the 2030 deadline on the horizon, trusts need more than quick fixes. This blog explores why now is the time to shift from reactive to proactive planning—and how to make it happen.

In the face of rising costs and shrinking support, this blog explores how Multi-Academy Trusts can tackle 2025’s financial challenges without sacrificing quality or outcomes.