An advanced tool to help school business professionals and/or school leaders in schools and trusts to calculate and interpret the use of the essential ICFP metrics for their settings and compare these against year specific and region-specific thresholds. The enhanced tool calculates the potential impact of inefficiencies financially, provides suggestions on possible causes as well as an assessment of structural efficiency.

Integrated Curriculum Financial Planning

ICFP stands for Integrated Curriculum Financial Planning. It helps a school use resources as effectively and efficiently as possible. It does so by systematically analysing all aspects of the educational provision within a school setting to ensure that financial planning process effectively balances the allocation and expenditure of resources.

ICFP uses a reasonably simple set of metrics that assist with collaborative decision-making across the leadership triangle, requiring involvement from school business professionals, senior pedagogical leaders and governors/trustees.

You can read more about ICFP in the ISBL Approach to ICFP.

About the ASOT

The tool uses readily available and easy-to-access data. On inputting this data, the tool calculates the essential diagnostic metrics that SBPs find easy to understand and use for analysing the efficiency and effectiveness of their resource use, enabling them to investigate potential areas of inefficiency and make more informed evidence-based, strategic decisions.

The ASOT:

• Uses the ISBL Approach to ICFP.

• Guides you step-by-step to enter your school’s data.

• Calculates the 12 Key Metrics for you not only for the current year but the previous two years as well as the future two year forecasts, based on year-specific thresholds.

• Applies a RAG rating system to all of the metrics to indicate which areas may be of concern and require further investigation.

• Provides separate thresholds for region-specific metric comparisons (National/Fringe and Inner/Outer London).

• Assesses the potential size and financial impact in every metric area by comparison with  national threshold benchmarks.

• Quantifies inefficiencies by translating the variance into the potential value of resources being inefficiently used and indicating the possible resource efficiencies to be made

• Identifies possible reasons / causes of inefficiencies.

• Allows SLT to assess its structure’s efficiency.

• Provides a summary sheet of all of the key values.

• Is supported by accompanying documentation to help you understand the 12 Key Metrics and the calculations used.

How does it work?

• Guidance is provided about how to gather the data from your MIS and other sources that are needed for the data inputs into ASOT.

• You enter your schools data into the ASOT – you can differentiate between region-specific metric comparisons (National/Fringe and Inner/Outer London).

• The ASOT calculates the ICFP metrics for your school.

• The Primary or Secondary thresholds are then applied to your data, providing you with a RAG rated dashboard which includes:

  • Year-specific thresholds for all years analysed

  • Five years’ worth of key staffing and balance metrics based on year-specific thresholds, rather than using the current thresholds for all years analysed

  • Assessing the potential size and financial impact in every metric area by comparison, with the green (expected) national threshold benchmarks showing typical variance to these

  • Quantifying inefficiencies by translating the variance into the potential value of resources being inefficiently used and indicating the possible resource efficiencies to be made

• Indicating how to identify possible causes of inefficiencies, including some reasons/causes for the calculated metrics being larger or smaller than expected.

• Using the school’s size to provide indicative effective leadership and management structures and costings for secondary and primary settings, so the SLT can assess its structure’s efficiency.

• Providing a summary sheet of all the key values to export into your reporting mechanisms to share with your senior leadership team (SLT), governors, trustees and other external audience.

Watch the video below to see how the ASOT tool works:

Which school types can the ASOT be used in?

The ASOT is suitable to use with primary and secondary maintained, SAT, MATs and independent schools.  The current version of the ASOT can be used to calculate the metrics for special schools, however since the context of a special school can vary enormously, there is not a RAG rating available for this school type.

The ASOT only calculates the metrics for one school, and so if you want to use it in the context of multiple schools, you will need to calculate the metrics for each individual school and then self-aggregate the results.

NOTE: WE ARE LOOKING TO DEVELOP AN AGGREGATION ADD-ON TOOL FOR USE BY MATS IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS. THEREFORE MATS ARE RECOMMENDED TO PURCHASE THE ASOT RATHER THAN ASOT ESSENTIALS

The ASOT applies either Primary or Secondary thresholds to your schools data to produce the RAG rated dashboard. These thresholds are reviewed and updated twice a year, making our ICFP tool one of the most up-to-date available.

The thresholds used in the RAG rating are based on DfE statistical data and have been developed through our experience of applying ICFP to a wide range of schools’ data through insights from the ISBL School Resource Management Advisers. The Green thresholds are, from our experience, where schools should ideally aim for with consideration to their own strategic aims and context.

The ASOT should be used alongside a thorough understanding of how to use and implement ICFP in your school/trust. Context is key when interpreting ICFP metrics and there may be good reasons why your school falls into another threshold band. You should use the information from the ASOT to further investigate and diagnose possible areas of concern before moving ahead with any recommendations.

What if I am an individual school?

Another version of ASOT called ASOT Essentials is also available. ASOT Essentials incorporates all of the features of ASOT but DOES NOT include the following elements:

• Quantifies inefficiencies by translating the variance into the potential value of resources being inefficiently used and indicating the possible resource efficiencies to be made

• Identifies possible reasons / causes of inefficiencies.

• Allows SLT to assess its structure’s efficiency.

If you would like to access information on ASOT Essentials then click here.

What if I want to purchase the tool or thresholds for a Local Authority or organisation?

The ASOT Tool should only be purchased for use by individual schools or trusts. If you would like to purchase the tool or threshold data for use by finance staff within a local authority or else for an organisation, please email training@isbl.org.uk and we will email your our pricing model and purchase options.

How much does it cost to purchase?

There is an ISBL member rate and a non-member rate for our tools. All rates quoted below are inclusive of VAT and include biannual updates:

• ISBL Member rate: £660

• ISBL Non-member rate: £840

Please also be aware of the additional threshold costs as detailed below.

Please note that payment is required by debit or credit card only and will be accessible as a downloadable PDF and support page straight away.  If this is any issue please contact training@isbl.org.uk.

One of the benefits of being an ISBL member is being able to access the member rates for training and conferences. If you are not a member, you can find out more about joining ISBL here.

To be able to access the ISBL member rate, your membership needs to be active before you book your place on the course.

Threshold updates

All threshold updates will be provided free of charge until 31st August 2024. After this point ISBL will charge for threshold updates on an annual basis as follows (all prices include VAT):

What support is available?

ASOT is being offered as a non-supported tool.

• All metrics and thresholds are correct at the time of purchase.

• The thresholds used within the ASOT are reviewed and updated twice a year. Existing customers will then be issued with an updated version of the ASOT.

• The ASOT will be updated and developed over time, existing customers may be offered the opportunity to upgrade their ASOT version which may be at cost or free of charge.

• The ASOT is an Excel based ICFP tool. We recommend that you use Excel 2013+ or 365 on Windows. Some of the more advanced functionality in the ASOT is currently not supported for Macs.

• Via functions in the ASOT you can access a User Guide and other documentation to help support you to use the ASOT to calculate the metrics you need.

Is there any ICFP training available?

We run a range of ICFP training. What level of ICFP training you require will depend on your knowledge and experience of ICFP to-date.

If you are new to ICFP, we recommend that you attend this ICFP Fundamentals webinar to gain an understanding of the principles of ICFP and how it can be used. If you already have some knowledge and experience of ICFP, we recommend that you consider our intermediate training: Using ICFP accurately and effectively in your school webinar series

How can I purchase the ASOT?

ASOT is under the copyright of ISBL and Ash House Consultancy Ltd and is solely for individual and organisational use in calculating and benchmarking ICFP metrics.  ASOT can be used by individual schools and trusts, consultants or organisations (including local authorities) where they have the appropriate purchase rights to produce reports but the tool itself, access page and threshold data should not be shared more widely.  ISBL reserves the right to seek legal recourse should any individual or business be found to be sharing ASOT more widely, without the express consent of ISBL in writing.