Our Governance

Financial Information

The Governing Board of Ermysted’s Grammar School has decided to publish material about the School’s financial position in its desire to ensure openness, transparency and best practice concerning all information about the School.

As a Local Authority maintained school, Ermysted’s financial information is recorded and reported via North Yorkshire County Council to the Department for Education (“DfE”) using a standardised approach which allows for the consolidation of records under terminology and headings which are not necessarily clear to non-expert readers.

Therefore, the School has simplified the information into a format which the Governors believe is more accessible.

The information has been validated by the Local Authority following the end of each financial year and separately the School has also engaged the services of an independent professional firm to audit the records and confirm their accuracy.

Please click here to visit the school’s page on the schools financial benchmarking service.

Revenue account

The School receives income from the DfE via the Local Authority for pupils aged from 11 to 16. The amount is based on the number of pupils and a fixed amount per pupil, but further subject to some minor adjustments to the total.

The School receives funding for students in the Sixth Form based on a different methodology, but again essentially determined on the basis of the number of students in Year 12 and Year 13.

The third stream of Government funding is provided to support particular groups, specifically those who qualify for Pupil Premium or who have additional educational needs. The amount of money from this stream can vary quite significantly from year-to-year depending on the actual cohort of pupils at the School. This money is ring-fenced to be used in support of those pupils and a separate explanation of how that money has been spent is provided each year on the School’s website.

Capital account

Ermysted’s position is complicated slightly by the fact that it is a Voluntary-Aided Foundation School. As a consequence the Governors (the School) are usually required to contribute 10% of the Capital Funding allocated from the School’s revenue budget or from its reserves.

This Voluntary-Aided status has also meant that for many years, such money has been transferred by DfE to the Foundation and drawn down by the School as and when required largely to support maintenance and repairs.

The summary information provided distinguishes between the annual allowance provided for maintenance and repairs and project specific funding awarded for particular projects as a result of bids submitted to the DfE and the Local Authority.

Financial reserves

The School has recovered from a challenging financial position a few years ago which had forecast a cumulative deficit and has accumulated money in its reserves in the last few years through careful control of costs and prudent financial management, for example, reducing the number of FTE Teaching Staff, and renegotiating external contracts.

The Governing Board believes that it is prudent to maintain a level of financial reserves in the order of £300,000 to £400,000 against the need for unforeseen capital expenditure or to contribute towards significant future investment.

Performance in 2022/23 and 2023/24

The School benefitted from an increase in funding per pupil in 2023/24 which boosted overall income, additionally income from lettings was back to pre-pandemic levels. Offsetting this were staff salary increases and the impact of higher energy prices which increased by over 360% in 2022/23 and have remained high through 2023/24.

A prudent level of financial reserves has continued to be maintained during the course of 2022/23 and 2023/24. However, increasing pressure on costs and a potential fall in funding for post-16 education threaten to erode this balance.

Significant capital funding has been secured which has allowed the School to continue investing in works on-site without having to impact heavily on these reserves. Projects have focused on maintaining and improving the School buildings – in particular:

• renovating the pupils’ toilet facilities;
• improvements to the Sports Hall flooring;
• site security including works such as the widespread installation of maglocks, further perimeter fencing and additional CCTV coverage;
• energy saving projects including a continued commitment to the upgrading of lighting to LED around the School.

Overall, these factors, most particularly the unfunded increase in staff costs, resulted in a deficit of £69,714 for the financial year 2023/24.

School employees with a gross annual salary of £100,000 or more