Why every MAT should review its IT spend this year

When schools join a trust, they bring their own contracts, licences and suppliers with them. Multiply that across a dozen schools and you get duplication, overlapping subscriptions, and software nobody remembers buying.

A technology spend review simply pulls all of it into one view: every licence, contract, renewal date and supplier across the trust. Almost every time, it surfaces three things — duplicated tools doing the same job, licences paid for but barely used, and contracts auto-renewing at above-market rates.

The savings are real and recurring. Consolidating duplicated licences, renegotiating at trust scale rather than school-by-school, and cutting dead subscriptions commonly frees up a meaningful share of the technology budget — money that goes straight back into the classroom.

It also improves control. A single view of renewal dates means no more surprise invoices; standardising tools across schools makes support simpler and training easier; and central visibility helps trustees see where money actually goes.

You don't need to rip everything out. The point is to make deliberate choices rather than inherit a patchwork. Start with the biggest spend categories — usually cloud services, devices and software licensing — and work down. The first review is usually the one that pays for the next few years.