SummaryThe investigation began as research attempting to quantify how much of a headteacher's working week was spent operating a delegated budget within an authority's local management of schools (LMS) scheme. How the heads of schools operating a delegated budget used their time was then to be compared with the working weeks of heads of schools not yet in that situation. When the data began to be closely analysed, it was apparent that the differences were far more diverse than could be measured by either straightforward comparisons of the length of working weeks, or by simply looking at the time spent on LMS contrasted with the time needed for pre‐LMS finance. The data had been deliberately gathered in an unstructured way and this allowed a more detailed analysis. When the information was so examined, many interesting results regarding the use of time and intriguing questions for further research emerged. The raw results for the investigation were that LMS heads spent more time than their pre‐LMS counterparts on financial matters (+16 per cent), curriculum development (+7 per cent), internal contacts (+4 per cent), teaching (+3 per cent) and general administration (+3 per cent). They spent less than their pre‐LMS counterparts on base activities (‐22 per cent), staff professional development (‐6 per cent), external contacts (‐5 per cent) and breaks (‐2 per cent). There were also indications that their overall working weeks were some 13 per cent longer. It was also clear that the effect of LMS did not only affect the heads’ workload, but there was an influence across the whole school.