Latest DfE research questions include two on finance

From the DfE's Accountability and governance Research priorities and questions: The DfE said it hopes to 'identify evidence gaps and promote discussion of them with the research community, practitioners and other stakeholders' -  There were two specific finance questions:


The first was: 'What financial accountability mechanisms are used in countries with autonomous school systems? How effective are they at incentivising and ensuring schools are efficient in their use of resources to achieve educational outcomes?'

The second was: 'Is there a link between financial autonomy and school efficiency?'

The paper said: OECD identified three forms of accountability:
1. performance accountability through examinations and assessment
2. regulatory accountability through inspections
3. market accountability that emphasises parent/carer choice.

(Which of these categories would finance fall into? Would it be the second, and the inspector is the EFA? What does the EFA inspect, how often and how much does it rely on audited accounts? The National Audit Office raised questions about the uniformity of accounts auditing: Why did one audit firm find 70% of the sector's unapproved payments? )