Why we’re doing this work
Before a school opens as an academy, the ESFA provides details of their future revenue funding, known as the general annual grant (GAG), in indicative and final allocation statements. GAG funding is used by academies to meet their day-to-day running costs; this statement provides vital advance information to their senior leadership teams.
Indicative and final statements are currently issued as PDF documents, and include information such as:
- funding they’ll receive for their first partial and full years as an academy
- pupil numbers that have been used as the basis for calculations
- impacts on their funding if the date for converting changes
The existing PDF indicative GAG statement includes a detailed funding breakdown, but users told us it was missing some of the information they needed to plan future financial activity.
Our approach
We began by analysing information shared by other members of the Manage your education and skills funding (MYESF) team. And we spoke to Operational Excellence (OpEx) colleagues in ESFA. This gave us an initial understanding of the business needs, which evolved as we asked for clarification and further questions.
We also compared the PDF to a digital design that had been started before we took on the work. This helped us to see how much the design had changed, and whether it was consistent with design patterns that were being used elsewhere in MYESF.
Discovery research helped us to understand users’ priorities
The needs of users still felt like a big gap in our knowledge. So we began the design work with a round of discovery research. This was well worth doing, as it quickly told us that users:
- want to see the pupil numbers, rates and weightings that form the basis for calculations
- want to be able to download the data, for use in their own finance software
- would find it useful to access historical statements – which MYESF already provides
- want links to the relevant sections in guidance
This gave us enough to start creating lo-fi prototypes in Figma, for 3 journeys:
- the first indicative statement, with an academy opening date of 1 April (one of the most popular dates, as it aligns with the start of the financial year)
- a revised indicative statement dated 1 May, to show how we’d communicate the changes to funding caused by a delay in the opening date
- post-opening (also known as in-year opener) statements, also dated 1 May, which include confirmation of their funding for the first partial academic year, and the next full academic year
These prominently displayed the pupil numbers for the school, but we didn’t include rates and weightings data at this stage, as they were missing from the existing digital statement design.
Next, the lo-fi designs were turned into a prototype using the GOV.UK prototype kit, ready to research with users. We knew we wouldn’t be able to explore the finer points of GAG funding (we were still working through these with OpEx colleagues), but we felt we had a prototype that would tell us whether we’d understood users’ priority needs.
Users’ thoughts on our first prototype
All the participants in this round told us the inclusion of rates and weightings was essential.
“I would like the weightings on here, so I don’t have to go looking for them.”
“We use them for our calculations. Each LA has its own rates.”
Apart from this, we got a good response to the design. Users were pleased to see that we’d included:
- the options to print or save a statement, or download the data as a CSV file
- comparison functionality, which had tested well in earlier research
Preparing for further research
We used the next round of research to test the following:
- can we include table columns for rates and weightings data while delivering the right user experience?
- can users find their priority information easily?
- does it help to separate pupil-led from other factors in the school budget share (SBS) tab?
- can users find links to GAG guidance when they’re embedded in explainer text?
- do our explanations help them to understand how their de-delegated, notional special educational needs (SEN) and minimum funding guarantee (MFG) amounts have been calculated?
- which of these funding amounts are more important to users?
Improved user feedback, but not there yet
Participants in this round responded really well to the inclusion of rates and weightings information.
“We didn't get as much data as this (in the PDF)... it’s massively beneficial, as it helps us to model the weighting going forward, and gives us the basis for future years as well.”
However, they felt that dividing the SBS tab into pupil-led and other factors was artificial, as it didn’t reflect how they use the data. They didn’t notice that we’d included headings and sub-totals for each grouping, and they couldn’t find the sub-totals when prompted.
All of us observing the research sessions felt that the SBS tab was cluttered and therefore more difficult for users to scan. This contains the most important information for users, as it accounts for the largest share of GAG funding, so we knew more work would be needed to get this tab right.
Our other key insight from this round was that users wanted us to be more transparent about how their MFG and SEN allocations have been calculated. As one participant said:
“How is that (MFG) figure arrived at? It's bespoke to every school. Without the calculation I can’t use it to calculate forward and make future income assumptions.”
Another added:
“You’re putting it on to me to calculate that figure. I wouldn't want to look through 90 pages of guidance to get the answer.”
It was clear that we had more work to do, so we decided to find the time for further content and interaction design refinement, and plan another round of user research.
Finalising the design
To make the SBS tab easier to scan, we began by removing the sub-headers and sub-totals that added little value for users. We also checked that we were consistent in our use of GOV.UK headings throughout, so the content structure was clear, and to achieve a better visual balance between different heading sizes.
Being consistent in our use of heading sizes makes each statement tab cleaner and easier to scan.
We also collaborated further with OpEx colleagues, to refine the explanatory messaging used for de-delegated, notional SEN and MFG funding. Users had told us there wasn’t enough detail to help them understand how the amounts had been calculated. We needed to make it clearer that LAs ‘owned’ the calculations, and we were therefore limited in the amount of information we could provide. We agreed, however, that it made sense to direct users to LAs if they wanted more information about their allocation.
At the end of the SBS tab, there’s additional content to help users understand their notional SEN and de-delegated funding amounts.
The simplified content of the SBS tab seemed to work much better for users who participated in this round. They could move quickly to the information they wanted to see first, and they easily completed the research tasks we set.
The explanatory messaging landed better too. Nearly all users felt these were located in the right places, and that they were given enough information to understand the amounts funded.
We got really positive feedback from users about their overall experience. One said:
“Overall I think it's great. It’s very clear and I can easily see the tabs. This statement is brand new to me, but I’d be able to find things very quickly and easily.”
Another nicely summed up what users said as a whole:
“It all looks pretty self-explanatory and I like that it’s ordered in a similar way to the PDF GAG statement. The advantage here is there's more information at your fingertips (through links to guidance). I don’t have to Google stuff anymore.”
This completes the UCD team’s work on digital GAG allocation statements for now. They’re due to go live in MYESF in September 2024.