Schools and trusts could see significant increases in operational capacity by adopting operational excellence approaches increasingly seen in the commercial world and other parts of the public sector.
That’s according to a new in-depth report commissioned by the Institute of School Business Leadership (ISBL), supported by the Association of School Business Officials (ASBO) International.
Based on dozens of examples of operational excellence (OpEx) implementations in organisations from a wide range of sectors, types of work and levels of maturity, A study into the applicability of Operational Excellence to education systems asserts “with confidence” that most schools and school trusts have a minimum operational capacity creation opportunity of 20–30% if they regard teachers and pupils as customers, applying improvements across their central functions such as finance, HR, payroll, procurement, contract/supplier management, technology services, and estates management.
The report and framework will be launched at an ISBL-hosted event on Thursday, 3 October, together with details about executive leadership and governor awareness webinars, a pilot OpEx foundation course, and a pathway to become an accredited OpEx practitioner.
OpEx is defined as “the cultural transformation and technical enablement of an organisation that allows it to perform optimally and achieve its strategic objectives”. The report claims the approach could help to reduce and even eliminate waste from a range of tasks and processes over time. Examples of administrative processes that create waste include forms that take too long to complete, duplicate data entries, and errors that result in rework.
The research reveals that just 20% of trusts have currently adopted the ‘OpEx’ approach. This creates a “game-changing opportunity for the vast majority of trusts and the wider sector” said ISBL CEO Stephen Morales.
“OpEx is the natural next step in the sector’s improvement journey,” he added. “At its basic level, OpEx is about reflecting on what we do and asking ourselves the question: are there incremental improvements that can be made? OpEx is a major opportunity to improve if schools and trusts accept that there is an improvement journey to go on,” he said.
Stephen Morales said just a fifth of school trusts had already adopted OpEx-type approaches. This leaves the sector with a massive opportunity. “There are some green shoots, but this is often through happenstance rather than the deliberate application of the approach.”
The report insists that OpEx is not a complex methodology and that its power is in simplicity and adaptability. It is applicable in all schools and trusts large and small, adding that “consistent, committed leadership and a willingness to tackle old problems with a new mindset” will be at the heart of its success.
The report includes a practical, hands-on framework for using OpEx approaches in schools and trusts of all sizes.
The OpEx framework includes a series of statements of what good OpEx practice looks like in 10 key ‘domains’, leading with its impact on teaching and learning, and including process and quality control, resource planning and deployment, and data performance measurement.
Examples of good practice include school business leaders and central function staff understanding that heads and teaching staff are their internal customers, ensuring that all processes are simply documented, understood and adhered to by all, and continually checking that every team or function has exactly the right amount of resources it needs.
Stephen Morales said the size of the prize was clear. “If we apply OpEx, we can create conditions where excellence is more likely to happen. The report is confident that a 20–30% increase in operational capacity is possible.
“The issue we have as a sector is that we don’t have the headroom to innovate and to reflect. That saving could give us the headroom we need.
“If we get that relationship right between really good pedagogical leadership and really good business principles, we create the conditions where children can attain better than ever.”
The report has been warmly welcomed by trust leaders. Lee Miller MBE, Deputy CEO of Thinking Schools Academy Trust, said: “I can already see how I can use this to drive improvements across the Trust.” Chris Wiseman, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of E-ACT, described the report as “a really insightful piece of work and something we are going to include as a key strategy in our 2024–25 business plan”.
The report also examines other sectors where OpEx and similar approaches have delivered benefits. These include Anglia Support Partnership, a shared services unit at one time supporting 26 NHS organisations. This organisation has been at the forefront of deploying OpEx tools and reporting capacity gains of around 20%.
Several trusts are actively working on OpEx style initiatives – with good results. The report contains examples in trusts taking OpEx approaches in a range of areas including customer focus, process control, resource flexibility, and use of data. But the report concludes that there is still little evidence of quality control, work measurement and capacity planning, team-based performance measures, operations management training and skills, and appropriate spans of control.
“While there are policies and procedures in place to manage risk, we found that understanding and use of in-process quality control is limited,” the report adds. “This is the discipline of looking at the work being done, assessing its quality and ensuring that corrective actions are in place. Without this, procedures and policies can give a false level of confidence that risk is being controlled at the front line. OpEx includes a suite of quality management tools that enable (trust) boards to sleep soundly, knowing that there is robust, real-time control of the work being done.”
Media coverage
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/school-improvement-all-eyes-on-the-opex-prize/
https://educationbusinessuk.net/news/02102024/opex-practices-major-opportunity-schools-improvement
https://edexec.co.uk/news-schools-urged-to-adopt-opex-approach/
https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/opex/news/schools-opex-ai-driven-process-automation