Bursar’s Review Sample

It hardly seems possible that as we finish, we hope, the COVID crisis, we go straight into an economic crisis that promises to potentially damage schools over a longer period than the pandemic did. But that is the reality of the situation we are now in and need to map our way through. More financial pressure on schools? (Or, no two crises are ever the same…) The world economy enjoyed a sustained period of growth up to 2019 and, as the pandemic started, economic activity slowed and therefore growth rates reduced. Another effect of the pandemic was to attenuate economic activity so that the potential was there, but the delivery was not possible Autumn 2022 www.theisba.org.uk 8 Feature owing to the health restrictions on the movement of people and goods. When this period of restriction ended the result was very sharply increased demand in comparison to the period prior to the pandemic, this caused supply chain shortages and therefore an increase in inflation. The recovery from that phenomenon was just beginning to take an effect when Ukraine was invaded, and supply chains were further disrupted, with supplies of energy the most obviously affected. This led to second round of inflation, a loss of confidence in the global supply chain, and sanctions against