Services for the Local Authority, under the Fair Funding categories of school improvement and strategic management are offered through:

• Support advice and guidance for schools causing concern and in financial difficulty.
  
  SFS concentrate on early recognition of potential budget problems and offers assistance to head teachers and governors on ways to reduce expenditure and formulate Local Authority agreed Deficit Repayment Plans.  Such support includes the production of future years financial forecasts of income and expenditure patterns based on a variety of scenarios, advice on costings for staff restructuring, interpretation of the centrally held contingency budgets to assist schools in financial difficulty and attendance at governing body meetings to present information and discuss and advise on key recommendations for reducing expenditure.

• Local Authority Monitoring Role

SFS undertakes the Local Authority monitoring role on behalf of the Strategic Director for Children’s Services and the Director of Finance. 

This monitoring role is an integral part of the finance officer visits to those schools that purchase financial services from SFS and it ensures that the Local Authority’s statutory responsibilities in terms of financial probity in schools is being fulfilled.  For those schools that do not purchase financial services from the Local Authority the monitoring role is undertaken by schools submitting compliance returns and associated reports on a twice yearly basis to SFS, in accordance with conditions laid down in the Fair Funding Scheme of Delegation.