The report is based on the year from mid-March 2024 to mid-March 2025 (Finance Festival to Finance Festival). All quotes throughout are from BUFDG members.
Advocacy, Liaison, and Collaboration
Erica Conway - BUFDG Chair (CFO, University of Birmingham)
Many finance folk in higher education still find themselves in a challenging and uncertain position this year, indeed we all find ourselves in an uncertain world at present. Whilst BUFDG cannot influence the constantly shifting geopolitics that are contributing to the uncertainty, it can provide support for each and every one of us within H E finance in some way, shape or form. BUFDG brings together the best ideas from H E finance leaders and their teams, sharing them with the rest of the community, and even beyond, where such ideas might have influence for the benefit of the sector.
Whilst BUFDG seeks to represent everyone in H E finance, whether that be through consultation with relevant government and sector bodies, working groups, networking groups, discussion boards, projects, or events, we realise too that the H E ‘sector’ is not one homogenous group with every university or H E provider’s needs being the same. We see the variety among the BUFDG membership and act as a key convener to pull together the strands of commonality but still recognise the differences - BUFDG’s member institutions operate under four different H E funding and regulatory regimes and in a variety of corporate forms; some institutions offer a broad range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and undertake significant research; others specialise e.g. in the arts, agriculture, engineering, or veterinary medicine; others offer postgraduate courses only; some have little to no research income/activity; and yet others are specialist research institutes; some specialise in widening participation and helping students with potential who come from backgrounds that don’t traditionally engage with universities; whereas others are considered more ‘elite’ and whose widening participation activities are very different; some have large endowments; others have to fundraise from a relatively new alumni base; some are self-contained campuses; others are based in buildings spread throughout a city; and some even have overseas campuses. And many more differences besides. It is a challenge to try to represent such a broad spectrum of institutions but by both focusing on common challenges and providing relevant forums for specific groups, it’s a challenge that BUFDG is alive to.
Whilst universities and H E providers are going through difficult times, some much more so than others, this is the time for finance teams to shine. Finance is at the forefront of meeting the current challenges and managing these demands well requires expert information, excellent connections, and personal resilience, all of which BUFDG can help with. Make sure you are making the most of BUFDG membership to help yourself, your team, and your institution during challenging times – use all the resources available to you to make your life a little easier, whether that be getting the latest information relevant to your role through news and updates, making the most of the extensive e-learning courses and BUFDG events to keep your knowledge and personal development up to date (and your CPD points up to scratch), engaging in lively discussion in BUFDG meetings or Time to Talk webinars, or leaning on the BUFDG network for answers or support.
Engagement in BUFDG resources, events, and the BUFDG network is part of the answer to the sector’s current challenges, in whatever specific way they are impacting your institution. The exact way you use all that is available to you as a BUFDG member will be individual to your own needs, but will always offer massive value for money in a way that the sector can be proud of. BUFDG is a fantastic example of a sector-owned organisation that provides shared services back to the sector, along with its fellow H E associations within the umbrella company, Professional H E Services Ltd.
In last year’s annual report, I reflected on the number of changes to the BUFDG CFO database and attributed many of them to the effects of the pandemic. The past 12 months have been no less turbulent, and by my reckoning, 95 (52%) of current CFOs have taken up their role in the last three years. It is good to see that 56 of the 95 had previous H E experience and this shows that the sector is developing talent. However, the working conditions in 2025 are unlike any that most finance professionals have experienced before and the need for CPD and personal support has never been greater.
The working environment for finance leaders has changed not because more technical money management skills are needed but because it is more uncertain now than it has ever been. Rising costs and falling income are the consequences of domestic political decisions (or non-decisions), geopolitical events leading to precarious supply chains, and general confusion about the purpose and value of universities, so is it any wonder that we have seen so much change in the list of CFOs? We have a permanent population of interim CFOs in the sector, with 15% of universities having had at least one interim CFO in the last three years. We welcome their involvement in BUFDG. Matt has just published the survey of Senior Finance Leaders – Salary and Responsibilities which includes a wealth of interesting information for you to use in benchmarking your own situation. If you didn’t take part this time, but find the report useful, please think about doing so next time.
The BUFDG team has worked incredibly hard again this year, providing members with outstanding service and attention on a huge range of issues. I hope you agree that the quality and quantity of work they produce is amazing and we thank you for giving us such interesting jobs. At this year’s AGM we will prompt you to think about the future of BUFDG and what part the organisation should play in helping to meet sector challenges. But we welcome feedback at any time of the year on anything we do - it is your organisation to value and develop. One of the great advantages of being a BUFDG member is the network of trusted peers and colleagues and BUFDG staff. We are looking forward to seeing you at a gathering, real or virtual, this year and to supporting you through the “interesting times” to come.
Karel Thomas OBE - BUFDG Executive Director
Amanda Darley - BUFDG Head of Operations and Engagement
During 2024-25 we tried to maintain a focus on ‘Technology’, both for BUFDG as an organisation and in relation to how it impacts our members. While much of our time was spent on our usual activities or topical issues that arose from members’ needs, we did keep technology in mind throughout the year. We've also had a look at our other main resource (the team!) and how we can better utilise our strengths, and continued to focus on creating time and space for face-to-face team interaction to foster the best work we can produce.
2024-25: Internally, we contributed to a PHES-wide project to implement Power BI for our reporting and data analysis, and this went live in March 2025. The team is currently getting to grips with it, both for the reports we already run on a regular basis, and also ‘playing’ with it to learn about the additional functionality and insights it provides.
For our member-facing technology, we’ve been working on another PHES-wide project to bring you a personalised feed on the BUFDG website, and we are exploring how this can best work for our members.
We also gathered together a list of the finance systems used by 123 universities/H E providers, as well as the payroll, expenses, CT returns, VAT and global mobility software used by many of them. And still on the technology theme, we’ve also been involved in helping to pilot a research companion AI tool.
Another technology-focused change this year has been the introduction of a small number of MS Teams Channels for some of our member networks, as a trial of how well this works to foster networking and connections, and share best practice and ideas among our membership. We will continue to monitor how well these are used for the remainder of this financial year to determine whether we continue, and possibly expand these or not.
We’ve spent some time this year clearing up our member database to help us with a current internal focus on reducing our ‘dark data’ (which also extends to decluttering our virtual cupboards and regularly weeding our email folders). This is definitely not the most joyous or inspiring of tasks, but it is important to keep the carbon footprint of our small team equally small!
As well as technology, we’ve also been looking at the very human side of our resources, with the team enjoying a Strengthify day in November which we found to be a useful way of viewing our strengths individually and how we can utilise them as a team (as well as an uplifting day for us all). We have since built on this day by looking at how we can better utilise our strengths in how we approach tasks and allocate work.
We think that cohesion and collaboration is as important as ever for our fully remote team, so we continue with our monthly in-person meetings, which are always thought provoking, uplifting, and tend to spark creativity in ways that video meetings just don’t. Despite the team being spread over 200 miles, we all find them invaluable for our wellbeing, knowledge sharing, and ‘team spirit’.
The year(s) ahead: As ever we'll be open to more feedback and keeping an eye on what's happening in the sector, to shape what we do and what we offer for members. But given the changes happening throughout the sector at the moment, we will also be working with the BUFDG Executive Committee to think about the future direction that BUFDG should take so we are better placed to meet the changing needs of the H E sector. It’s unclear what form any changes might take at present, but we definitely live in ‘interesting’ times…
Over the past 12 months our members have had the benefit of all the outputs listed in the boxes below - expand them to find out more...
BUFDG is not a lobbying organisation, but we represent our members by advocating for the issues that matter to them. We look at the broader picture and link with other organisations working outside of finance, as well as raising finance issues with appropriate organisations or government departments to try to find solutions.
You can have a look at our Advocacy webpage to find out more about the numerous meetings and events we attend to learn about issues in the sector, help develop solutions, or advocate for BUFDG members and H E finance issues (we’ve attended almost 150 in the 6 months since we starting recording these in September 2024!). You can also find our consultation responses and other evidence and documents we submit on your behalf on the Advocacy page.
It has been an extremely busy year of work on the new SORP but as a result it is currently on track, with the consultation on the exposure draft closing on 30 April 2025, and the SORP expected to be published in August, ahead of the effective date of January 2026. The consultation was publicised by BUFDG, UUK, the Association of Colleges, and other stakeholders.
Arrangements have been made for a webinar and a series of regional workshops will be hosted by KPMG's Accounting Advisory Services team throughout May and June 2025, work on guidance documentation is underway, and an online forum for BUFDG members is being arranged for late June/early July to facilitate discussions around implementing the SORP changes.
The main changes the new SORP will bring in relate to the treatment of leases and income recognition.
We closed out this project during 2024-25 by ensuring that the calculator tool was updated to ensure the figures underpinning the tool remain current until at least July 2025. Over half of BUFDG member institutions have engaged with the calculator since launch, with more than 700 bookings for calculator related webinars across the three membership organisations. Around 60% of engagement has been with sustainability teams, 30% estates teams, and 10% finance teams.
The calculator is designed to:
· Assist any institution which has not already developed an approach to calculating the cost of decarbonisation to understand early-stage cost estimations for a proposed transition to net zero, understand the potential scale of investment required to meet net zero goals and act as a yardstick tool to assist financial planning.
· Start conversations about the actions and resource required to decarbonise institutional footprints in order to achieve net zero targets.
· Enable institutions to better understand the actions and resource required to decarbonise their individual footprint to achieve the net zero targets that have been set, or to test how achievable an institution’s net zero targets are, based on the individual circumstances of the institution.
· Provide a standardised methodology and approach for modelling what the additional marginal costs on a decarbonisation journey might look like under different scenarios for short-term and long-term Scope 1 and 2 decarbonisation costs and emission reductions, using industry accepted sources.
Given that engagement has peaked and the calculator has served its purpose, no future development is planned. Therefore, when the Future Energy Scenarios on which the calculator is modelled are next updated and render the calculator out of date, we will determine whether to make it available to members with appropriate caveats should it still be deemed a useful modelling tool, or to archive.
We created our first ever Member Value Proposition last year, focusing on the £ value for money and savings that members receive through BUFDG membership, and we have updated that this year, as our services have expanded.
We are also working on a second phase of this project which aims to address specific ‘audiences’ within our membership to ensure they are aware of all the resources, networks and guidance available to help them with their specific roles and responsibilities.
BUFDG's working groups are the engines of BUFDG - composed of members from a range of HEPs, and supported by BUFDG staff, these groups help set the agenda for BUFDG's work programme and contribute to and scrutinise the outputs. BUFDG's networks provide communities for members to share ideas, best practice and the latest updates with peers across the country. See what they've been up to this year by expanding the boxes below.
We’ve been delighted to support the Welsh Higher Education Finance Directors Group meetings, both online and in-person at Bangor University and Cardiff Metropolitan University, as well as visiting Scotland for the Scottish Universities Finance Directors Group meetings (this year held at Heriot Watt University and Queen Margaret University).
Karel has hosted some fascinating networking lunches around England, enabling members to make some brilliant connections and pick up some of the most useful information, as well as supporting catering college restaurants around the country.
The relatively new Larger HEPs Group for CFOs and Finance Directors went from strength to strength during 2024-25. Three main meetings were held throughout the year, two online and one in-person as part of the ‘fringe’ sessions at last year’s Annual Meeting. All meetings have been well attended, with useful presentations generating lively discussion.
As an offshoot of this group, in response to member requests, three roundtable meetings were also held, regarding banking engagement and negotiations, and course costing, with a follow-up session for sharing case studies around the use of TRAC and existing tools and approaches to understanding the cost of activities.
In September 2024, Deborah Harry, CFO at the Royal Northern College of Music, joined Stephen Belderbos (Director of Finance and Planning, Norwich University of the Arts) as co-chair of the group, and represents this group of CFOs and Finance Directors on the BUFDG Executive Committee.
The group has held three sets of meetings throughout the year, including in-person at the 2024 Annual Meeting, and online, and has moved to holding a single, larger meeting each time (which is more appropriate to the number of HEPs involved), rather than two small meetings as in previous years. As part of the meetings in 2024-25 the group heard from UUK about their Blueprint for Change, and had the opportunity to feed into UUK’s work on financial sustainability.
We ran an excellent programme of Time to Talk sessions exclusively for CFOs/FDs throughout the year covering topics ranging from PwC’s financial sustainability of H E report to Interim CFOs, from Self-Administered Trust Pension Schemes to communicating the financial position to the rest of your institution, and from recent frauds in H E to managing your organisation's risk exposure within its financial means.
Our updated Future Finance Leaders work was released for members, which will be used to help shape further support for aspiring finance leaders, in particular to help development of Deputy FDs to be able to take the huge step up to FD/CFO. The report’s author, Phil McNaull, former Director of Finance at the University of Edinburgh and BUFDG Chair (2016-2018), also supported the launch of the report with some development sessions at our Deputy FD meetings and offered coaching to our Deputy FD members.
We held 19 regional meetings for our Deputy FD members, including 6 in-person meetings and 13 online meetings, with delegates from 105 H E providers attending.
The network of tax staff among BUFDG members remains strong, with the discussion boards very active and Time to Talk webinars and roundtable meetings well attended. Regular quarterly meetings between BUFDG’s tax team and HMRC’s H E team enable BUFDG to raise member concerns and seek clarification where needed (minutes available here). Members of the National Tax Group continue to provide significant support to Andrea and Julia, with a wide variety of topics discussed at the quarterly meetings (minutes available here). We have welcomed a number of new members to the group during the past year.
The 2024 Tax conference took place online, using MS Teams. Session topics were selected by the tax group and the BUFDG tax team, and the conference was a great success with more than 190 members attending.
More than 20 online and in-person meetings were held for the BUFDG tax network (excluding employment tax meetings), plus several Time to Talk webinars, with recordings of most of the webinars available on our website.
The following tax-related BUFDG guidance and resources were published during 2024-25:
Employment status (or IR35 / Off-payroll working) creates some of the most significant challenges for members in this area. During 2024-25 we offered more ways to connect with peers including via a new Teams channel, and helped ensure they are aware of the different resources available on the BUFDG website.
During the year 30 online and in-person meetings were held for the BUFDG employment tax/global mobility network, along with several Time to Talk webinars, with recordings available on our website, as well as free training on Employment Status/IR35.
Resources and guidance provided throughout the year include:
· A flowchart on when the teachers article applies under double taxation agreements
· A briefing on how the National Minimum Wage (and NLW) applies in the H E sector
· A submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review
· A tax overview of the Spring Statement
· A factsheet on Electric Vehicle salary sacrifice arrangements
· Articles on the Employment Rights Bill and how it will impact zero and low hours contracts
· Summaries of guidance on income tax for globally mobile employees
Three new members joined the FRG in 2024-25: Carol Rudge from HW Fisher, Jayne Rowe from Crowe, and Will Dent from the Office for Students.
The usual work of the FRG included providing the annual financial statement workshops (attended by 289 members with the recording viewed 181 times) which included some early tips and indications for the changes expected in the new SORP; a review of financial statements across the sector; and working with USS on a slightly more complicated deficit modeller than usual.
In addition, the main project for this group this year has been the new FEHE SORP. The exposure draft for SORP 2026 was published in February 2025, along with additional guidance relating to the key changes in FRS 102 relevant to higher and further education, and model financial statements for higher education providers. The consultation on the exposure draft ran for 12 weeks. The SORP project continues and the new SORP is on track to be published on 1 August 2025.
During 2024-25 HEPA welcomed Amy Noble, Director of Procurement at the University of Liverpool, as the new Deputy Chair. Amy will be helping our Chair, Cathy Burleigh, CFO at Oxford Brookes University, in steering the group.
With the new Procurement Act coming into effect in England and Wales in February 2025, and with HEPA being the single point of contact for the sector on this project, much of the year prior to that was spent helping members to prepare, providing briefings and webinars, and in discussions with the Cabinet Office and other H E procurement bodies such as UKUPC. There is a huge amount of information available on the HEPA website regarding the Procurement Act and relevant resources.
The Procurement Value Survey (PVS) for the financial year 2022-23 showed total impactable spend of £7.8bn, with total gross efficiencies of £326m. The 2024 PVS survey data has been gathered, and the report will be launched shortly. New guidance for procurement benefits methodology/reporting was released during the year in association with UKUPC.
The Responsible Procurement Group had a busy year releasing a number of pieces of guidance, including EDI Guidance, and a Supplier Assurance Guide.
The HEPA procurement community enjoyed 18 networking and roundtable meetings throughout the year, as well as some webinars (with webinar recordings available on the website), and HEPA and UKUPC provided an introductory webinar to help explain H E procurement to your non-procurement colleagues, and a recording is available on the website to direct your colleagues to.
Other information and guidance published by HEPA during the year included:
· A paper on contracting authority status for English and Welsh HEPs
· A new Scope 3 HESCET dashboard, and guidance notes
The Research Finance Forum was formed in 2023-24 and gained its first co-chairs in 2024-25 - Helen Hammond, Head of Research Finance at the University of Nottingham, and James Allman, Head of Research Accounting, Monitoring and Claims at Cranfield University. A Teams channel was also set up (as one of BUFDG’s test Teams channels for members), and its usefulness for members is being monitored until August (anyone wishing to join it, please contact Joni).
Work undertaken during the year including acting to ensure that research institutes were included in a UKRI consultation on cost recovery, as well as including our new research finance co-chairs, and ensuring ARMA were involved.
A sub-group on Timesheets and Reporting includes representatives from the ARMA post-award and compliance Special Interest Groups, auditors, and BUFDG, all engaging with UKRI and drafting guidance to support BUFDG and ARMA members with assurance requirements.
A new Knowledge Hub page dedicated to Research Finance was launched, including a number of useful resources.
BUFDG attended the Guild HE Research Consortium and has subsequently engaged with the director of REF regarding HESA staff data, and the Associate Director at Research England regarding their plans around 'reportable events' relating to changes that may impact activities funded by REF.
A number of other pieces of work are ongoing and will be communicated to members over the coming months.
This relatively new group was established as a Task and Finish Group during 2024-25, focused on creating a number of useful resources for members, but will now only meet annually unless new issues emerge requiring more frequent meetings.
As a result of the new focus on investments, BUFDG now has good engagement with the Responsible Investment Network Universities (RINU), shares resources with RINU, and held a joint webinar in impact investment for universities. BUFDG also regularly engages with SOS-UK (Students Organising for Sustainability) and has begun a dialogue with the Association of Charitable Foundations to see if there are useful overlaps.
Resources and guidance published on investments during the year included:
· A guide to net zero investments
· A guide to working with students on investment approaches
More guidance is currently being worked on and will be published in the coming months.
After several years of leading this group with enthusiasm, Andy McGoff, Finance and Operations Director at Edinburgh Napier University, recently stepped down as Chair. We are extremely grateful to Andy for his support for this group and the insight and ideas he contributed. We are discussing the group with the new Chair and details will be announced shortly.
This working group met a couple of times throughout the year, looking at ways to support the sector’s counter fraud efforts, and held a great Time to Talk webinar for CFOs and FDs looking into recent frauds within the H E sector.
We also issued a briefing on the new Failure to Prevent Fraud offence, coming into force on 1 September 2025 as part of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, and a report on how the Economic Crime Levy impacts the H E sector.
As well as finalising and closing out the Cost of Net Zero Calculator project (see the Major Projects section above) and maintaining an up to date list of funding for decarbonisation projects, we updated our Sustainability Reporting Landscape document – our attempt to summarise the existing sustainability-related reporting requirements that impact the sector, as well as those that we think may influence future policy and the shape of future regulation. BUFDG, along with other H E organisations, helped AUDE with the Guide to Decarbonisation work with Arup. We’ve also published a brief explainer guide on the FCA’s recent anti-greenwashing rules, which came into effect in May 2024, and how they could impact H E providers.
Set up the previous year, the Student Income and Collection Management Group is a fully-fledged group this year and has held several meetings. In addition, a Monthly Reporting network is in its infancy.
Income Collection Teams completed the Student Income Collection Management Survey, to help us find out what they really want and need to know about to inform the work of the group.
In addition, we arranged Time to Talk sessions by different payment platform providers, including case studies with universities they have worked with. We also consulted with members working in income and collection management about e-invoicing to contribute to our response to HMRC/the Department for Business and Trade’s consultation on promoting e-invoicing across UK businesses and the public sector.
As a new group set up this year, we held the first Financial Planning and Analysis meeting in October in conjunction with HESPA colleagues, and further meetings in December and February. It is still early days for this group and we will see how useful members find it throughout 2025-26 and how it evolves, but so far the group has brought finance and planning colleagues together to discuss topics such as how FP&A teams and strategic planners can work together better, developing financial strategies and mitigation plans based on current strategic challenges, how analysis is driving decision making within finance and across institutions, and the intersection of performance metrics with financial metrics.
We’ve worked really hard on gaining CPD certification for numerous courses during 2024-25, and all of our 52 e-learning courses are now CPD certified. We also obtained CPD certification for the Finance Festival, the TRAC Practitioners Conference, the Tax Conference, Management Accountants Week, and our Introduction to H E for Professional Services Staff course.
We've been working on new e-learning courses throughout the year and are just about to launch four new courses on Conflicts of Interest, Business Analysis and Insight, Stakeholder Relationships, and Exports. We also updated a number of existing courses throughout the year. While all our e-learning courses remain free and available on our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for all BUFDG Pro members, as in previous years, a number of universities decided to purchase specific e-learning courses from us to host on their own VLEs, making their internal reporting easier for key courses (if you are interested in doing the same, then contact Rachel quickly as the price is going up – for the very first time - to £1,250 per module from 1 August).
We tested the format of ‘Introduction to’ sessions for non-specialists by holding an Introduction to Procurement webinar in conjunction with UKUPC to explain the mysteries and purpose of procurement. The webinar went well, and we will shortly be following up with an ‘Introduction to Financial Reporting’ (and we will also be creating an introductory e-learning course on financial reporting in H E).
We provided a number of events in collaboration with other H E organisations, encouraging partnership and closer work with other teams within member institutions, including an event for senior leaders in finance, estates, legal services, internal audit, planning, IT and HR on navigating the pressures of financial challenges through strategic collaboration, an update from the SLC on LLE funding for finance and planning staff, and all our employment tax, employment status and global mobility meetings and events are open to HR as well as finance and payroll staff.
We were also delighted to support our Scottish members again in administering the Scottish Universities Finance Conference last May and are doing the same this year.
You can view BUFDG's Statement of Accounts for the year ending 31 July 2024 below.
BUFDG has been operating a deficit budget for a number of years now whilst utilising excess reserves. However, given the precarious nature of working with deficit budgets, and given the value that members place on BUFDG’s services (as evidenced in the BUFDG review in 2023-24), the Executive Committee has determined that BUFDG should return to a balanced budget in 2025-26.
The pre-tax result for 2023-24 was a £30,000 surplus (against a deficit budget, due to underspends in a couple of areas) and we expect a pre-tax deficit of approximately £56,000 for the 2024-25 financial year.
Despite the current excess reserves position (which continues to be used to fund the new FEHE SORP work) and due to the commitment to cover core costs with subscription income, we will be increasing subscription fees for 2025-26. At the request of the Executive Committee, we will be making a graduated increase to subscription fees, with larger institutions paying higher increases.
Subject to confirmation therefore, rates for 2025/26 will be:
|
Turnover band |
Subscription rate for UK HEPs |
Standard £ excl. VAT |
Inc. BUFDG Pro £ excl. VAT |
Levy for FEHE SORP users £ excl. VAT |
|
7 |
Turnover >£750 millions |
7,500 |
9,000 |
250 |
|
6 |
Turnover >£400 millions |
6,000 | 7,400 |
250 |
|
5 |
Turnover >£200 millions |
5,000 | 6,100 |
250 |
|
4 |
Turnover >£100 millions |
4,500 | 5,400 |
250 |
|
3 |
Turnover >£25 millions |
3,750 | 4,550 |
250 |
|
2 |
Turnover >£10 millions |
2,400 | 2,850 |
250 |
|
1 |
Turnover <£10 millions |
1,600 | 2,020 |
250 |
* The SORP levy will enable us to set these funds aside to ensure the next SORP project can be properly funded. The proposed SORP charge from 2025/26 was confirmed at the 2024 AGM. The levy receipts will be set aside in the accounts for when the next FEHE SORP is required.
Find out more about BUFDG and its umbrella company, Professional HE Services Ltd (PHES), by expanding the section below. You can also find out more about our three strategic objectives, take a look at our risks and challenges, and read this year's staff profile of our Head of Operations and Engagement, Amanda.
You can read more about the structure of PHES by following the link below, but perhaps the biggest benefit is the collaboration between staff from different Special Interest Organisations within PHES (AUDE, AULP, BUFDG [inc. HEPA], CHEIA, CUBO, HESPA, and UHR). As there are many similarities between membership organisations, the joint initiatives and familiarity of staff allow each of the organisations to learn and benefit from all the others. We often work on joint projects with other PHES organisations, and there are joint PHES team meetings three times a year, as well as multiple working groups to facilitate the cross-PHES benefits on specific issues.
BUFDG aims to support university finance managers and their teams by providing them with up-to-date information, analysis, guidance, and comment on financial news, strategy, and management in H E by:
Despite the increasing emphasis on competition between universities, the collegial culture of UK higher education can be harnessed for the advantage of the whole sector without contravening competition law through:
BUFDG will lead and catalyse partnership working among the wide range of professional associations, think-tanks, mission groups, and membership organisations, in the best interest of all its members. Before launching any project or service, BUFDG will ask, “who can we work with?” We will:
BUFDG's Strategy is currently being updated.
BUFDG continues to benefit from stable staffing, finances, and support from members. The team has not changed since 2022.
The BUFDG review (reported on last year) highlighted how valuable members find the BUFDG service, how helpful they find the team, and how vital the BUFDG/HEPA network of members is to many staff in H E finance and procurement teams.
However, we are well aware that the sector is going through a period of change and that this presents new risks and challenges to BUFDG itself as an organisation, as well as to our members. As a result, we are reviewing our risk register in consultation with the Executive Committee and considering what the future of BUFDG might look like and how it can evolve to meet the changing needs of the H E sector. This is a live piece of work at present.
It’s my turn for the staff profile this year, so you have the joy(!) of two sections from me in this year’s report.
I joined BUFDG from the University of Oxford back in 2014 and was delighted to get stuck into my first role here as Tax Specialist, meeting tax members up and down the country, representing them in discussions with HMRC and HM Treasury, and expanding my knowledge into areas of tax I hadn’t worked in before. Organising my first ever tax conference was a daunting task, but I thrived on the new experience of event organisation and whilst it was always hard work, organising the conference became one of my favourite parts of the tax role.
After dipping our toe into the e-learning water with a small number of courses from 2015, in 2019 we launched our BUFDG Pro service, expanding our suite of e-learning courses considerably, with plans to continually expand and refine the offering. We were also starting to provide webinars and think about how to provide more services digitally. At which point I moved into the new role of Digital Content Manager to oversee our digital expansion. (And luckily recruited our excellent current Tax Specialist, Andrea, to take over the tax remit).
When the pandemic came along in 2020 and turned all our lives upside down, it also accelerated our shift to more digital services in a way and at a pace we hadn’t foreseen. By the autumn of 2021 Karel decided that her many years of dedication to BUFDG and its members justified taking things just a little easier, and when she reduced her hours (slightly!) I took over some of her previous responsibilities and team management in my current role of Head of Operations and Engagement.
This role is a bit more 'behind the scenes' than my earlier years at BUFDG, though I also have member-facing responsibilities in supporting the Smaller HEPs group and regularly attending Scottish meetings to keep up with everything north of the border. And I'm delighted to still meet up with members at conferences and meetings occasionally, to make a change from budgets, reviewing reports, data analysis, working on IT changes, writing the Digest, organising our team meetings, and overseeing the team's development (as well as dabbling in everyone else's projects!). I definitely look at BUFDG through a different lens in this role and feel a great weight of responsibility every time the AGM comes around, but also a massive sense of pride in the whole BUFDG team and its achievements when I look back over the year to write the content for the Annual Report. No matter how many years I've been a part of BUFDG (as a member for eight years and as an employee for eleven), I am always amazed at just how much we achieve in conjunction with our members. I couldn't hope for a better team.
You can find previous Annual Reports on our 'About Us' webpage.
