Ian Richardson
Built hundreds of website and helped countless schools realise their potential online. Ian should be called upon for straight-talking advice and to make a difference to the way you present your school through every outlet.
Ed - UPDATED 27/11/20 - There is a new school website requirement for all schools, as of 27th August 2020 but was added to the information of what academies, free schools and trusts must publish in November 2020. This is a requirement to publish specific financial information on your school website. It is a 'must' and so all schools need to comply immediately. This article explains how to meet the new school website financial information requirement.
Find details of the requirement included in the School Website Requirements Guide and it is of course included in the latest School Website Compliance Course. For maintained schools this requirement is referred to as 'financial information. For academies, free schools and Trusts, it is referred to as 'executive pay'. But, the requirements are fundamentally the same.
What is the new School Website Financial Information / Executive Pay Requirement?
The new requirements for all schools to publish Financial Information on their school websites is quite straightforward. But, it is required of all schools.
You must publish:
-
how many school employees (if any) have a gross annual salary of £100,000 or more in increments of £10,000 - we recommend using a table to display this
-
a link to the webpage which is dedicated to your school on the schools financial benchmarking service - follow the prompts to find your school’s specific page
Note that you don't need to add the information for the first requirement if you don't have any employees earning over £100,000. But, we would recommend adding information stating that. Add this information to your website in basic text form on your policies page.
Find information below on how you can use tables to display this information.
Where should I add the new Financial Information / Executive Pay on my School Website?
Take one of two approaches to add this new information to your school website. Either will work well, but give consideration for the mantra that all content must be easy to find on your website.
Option #1 - Financial Information with your Policies
So, take the route of adding your school website financial information on your policies page. If you are using the Schudio School Website Software and you added this information as a document, the Document Groups option would work well. Then, you can add the content in a doc or pdf file and upload into the software so this can be viewed directly within the page.
Or, add this information on the page itself alongside all your documents and policies.
Option #2 - Financial Information on its own page
As this is a small requirement, in terms of the amount of content, there is a question as to whether this requirement justifies its own page. As it is a new requirement, you might decide this is a good option because you will potentially be able to make the content easy to find.
If you do this, ensure the content is on the page and not in a document merely uploaded to the page. If that is the route you choose to take, then we would advise adding the document to your main policies page.
Whichever option you choose, make sure it is clearly titled and labelled and easy to locate.
How should I display the new Financial Information / Executive Pay on my School Website?
Display the content in the most readily accessible format. Then you will have met the requirement in full. Here's what you need to do.
The new school website financial information requirements should be displayed in a table like the one below. The requirements states that DfE recommends using a table to display the information.
The table should work in a way which displays correctly on any device and should be easy to read. Find below a table created using a great free tool, Table Generator. So, whatever school website provider you are using, you can meet this requirement to the highest standard. Just use this tool.
| Annual Salary | Number of Staff |
|---|---|
| £100,000-£110,000 | 1 |
| £110,000-£120,000 | 0 |
| £120,000-£130,000 | 1 |
Then, add a link to the school financial benchmarking service. Make sure the link is to YOUR SCHOOL'S page on this website, not the main landing page.
How do you do this?
Click the link above and search for your school by school name, URN or LA. Then, copy the link to your page and add that link to your website.
This link will take you to Lytham High School's specific page, which we generated using this method.
Example of how to display the new School Website Financial Information
This is currently a brand new requirement and so below is an example of how we would display this information.
---------------------
Financial Information
Below is the information for Our School's employees who have a gross annual salary of £100,000 or more in increments of £10,000.
| Annual Salary | Number of Staff |
|---|---|
| £100,000-£110,000 | 1 |
| £110,000-£120,000 | 0 |
| £120,000-£130,000 | 1 |
Schools financial benchmarking service information for Our School.
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If you have any questions about this new requirement your first port of call is the School Website Requirements Guide. To go deeper join The School Website Managers Membership where you will get access to all School Website Requirements Course updates and training. Or, drop us a line.
