BUFDG Digest 15 July

BUFDG

Bookings are now open for the 2026 TRAC Practitioners Conference taking place online on 22–23 September. The event will include a mix of plenary and breakout sessions, giving delegates an overview of the work of the TDG, its activities and, of course, the latest TRAC guidance. A separate TRAC for Beginners session will take place on 16 September for conference delegates who are new to TRAC. Places cost £95 (plus VAT).

This week’s Shared/Sector-owned Services Spotlight is on the presentation from the University of London. It covers the University of London Federation, CoSector (a digital service provider that extends to institutions outside the federation), their approach to TNE in a federal structure, and their new Collaboration Hub. It is a treasure trove of information for any university/institution wanting to move into more collaboration with others, and is available to watch any time. (And if you view it at a perfectly watchable 1.5x speed it only takes 40 minutes - time well spent.) You can find all the other Shared/Sector-owned Services recordings here.

Recordings from the two-part Introduction to HE for Professional Services Staff event on 3 July are now available covering current challenges facing the sector and how is the sector working to address them, and sector culture and the skills required to navigate it. This is a useful watch for any new colleagues joining your teams in the coming months. 

SECTOR

It’s a whistle-stop tour of all the sector news this week. First up the OfS has published the results of the NSS. Lots of positive stats in there, including on response rate (72%) and an increasing number of students happy with the teaching on their course (88.1%). David Kernohan has the usual deep-dive into the data, whilst Jim Dickinson is sceptical – noting that the “four consecutive years in which not one theme or question fell nationally” suggests something is fundamentally flawed.

We get some new sector groupings, and some returning to old folds (what’s a ‘fold’? – other idioms are available). Universities West and Colleges West are now things, and seeking to work together to drive growth and improve opportunities in the West of England. Leeds Beckett and Luminate Education have announced an alliance, but “will remain independent institutions, each with their own governance, brand and degree-awarding powers”, working “to remove barriers to learning and respond directly to what local employers need”. We also find out that Glasgow Caledonian has rejoined Universities Alliance.

Also in Scotland, there is news of a project to explore ‘deep collaboration’ between three universities (Edinburgh Napier, Queen Margaret, and SRUC), using funding secured from the SFC’s University Transformation Fund. The article is written by former QAA Chief Executive Vicki Scott in her role as senior strategic advisor to the project, who explains that the aims sit “deliberately between ‘everyone for themselves’ and ‘everyone becomes one’”. There is a commitment for each institution to keep its own governance, DAPs, brand and identity, but the alliance “will deliberately explore shared services, aligned procurement, collaborative curriculum development, data-sharing and better student transitions across institutional boundaries”.

Finally, DfE has published (2024) data on revenue from TNE activity. Education exports increased just over 1% to £33bn, while TNE activity generated £3.6bn, up 17% on prior year. The report is covered by PIE news, that notes any future increases in growth are likely to be stymied by downward pressure on enrolments. In related news we also get a new HEPI report assembled by London Economics, outlining the benefits (and costs) of international students to the UK economy. It finds that the 24/25 cohort generated “total economic benefits of £45.1 billion over the course of their studies, while costing the public purse an estimated £4.7 billion, resulting in a benefit-to-cost ratio of 9.7 to 1”.

ENGLAND

The Office for Students has received a letter from the DfE setting out how the OfS should distribute almost £51m less in SPG funding less than it did last year. This is not good news for institutions offering courses in Price Group C1.1 and C1.2 and the commentariat on LinkedIn is critical. Professor Damien Page starts his post with, “Government says growth is its number one priority. The new Strategic Priorities Grant allocations tell a different story.” David Kernohan has additional thoughts in an article on Wonkhe.

We finally have more clarity on the International Student Levy (ISL), and again it is not a wonderful outcome. This week DfE published the International student levy: government response, a draft finance bill, and an explanatory note. The ISL will come in pretty much as originally planned for English H E providers.  The levy will be £925 per student, the threshold of students excluded from the levy remains at 220 and no other exemptions are planned. It will apply for the academic year beginning 1 August 2028, so the first payment to OfS will be February 2030. There will be 2 trial runs of data Autumn 2027 (26/27 FYE data) and Autumn 2028 (27/28 FYE data). Here’s a summary of the main points from the Consultation response, and if you’d like to commiserate with colleagues across the sector, you can join Andrea’s discussion, or add your thoughts to the bottom of DK’s Wonkhe article.

The calls to reform the student loans system seems to be reaching a crescendo. There have always been dissenting voices, but it seems like there’s an emerging consensus that the current approach is unsustainable. The recent Treasury Committee report describes the system as ‘broken and unfair’, says loans have been ‘mis-sold’ to students, and stresses that everyone seems to agree on this. While the report itself stops short of questioning the accounting treatment, a report from Prof. John Blake for Wonkhe’s Post-18 project suggests that the accounting is right at the core of the issue, and the system cannot be fixed without a significant re-assessment of how loans are treated in the government accounts.

WALES

A roundtable meeting took place last week between the UK government’s Wales Office, UKRI, and Welsh Universities to explore ways for greater collaboration on research across Wales and with UKRI and the UK government. The press release mentions that “The round table also explored how UKRI and Welsh universities can work together to remove barriers to funding success and strengthen engagement on future research bids. This includes ensuring closer alignment with the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy and UKRI’s emerging place-based strategy.”

The Welsh Government lost a vote this week on a supplementary budget – its first attempt to tweak government spending plans since it won the election in May. The change was focused on additional allocations for the NHS, Childcare, and Additional Learning Needs (ALS). While not catastrophic in itself, the failure of the minority Plaid Cymru government to gain the support of Labour – which it is likely to need to pass most legislation – is not promising, especially considering its future plans may be more politically challenging.

TAX AND PAYROLL

The BUFDG tax team are seeking your input into government proposals to mandate direct debit payments for PAYE and VAT liabilities. We are aware that the sector has on-going issues reconciling payments against HMRC ‘dashboard’ debts due to recognised ‘gremlins’ in the HMRC system, and believe that any mandating of direct debit will further exacerbate the issue. However, we need the sector to feedback on their issues here so we can add weight to our response.

Andrea, with input from the tax teams at Oxford and Cambridge, has produced a helpful new guidance document covering VAT, Research Funding and Third Party Consideration (July 2026). If funding received by a university is used to provide goods or services to a third party, such as an industrial partner, the funding may be treated as consideration for a supply, creating a VAT liability that requires the university to account for VAT and potentially issue a VAT invoice.

Of particular interest to research teams, our guidance on Paying Research Participants: Tax and NMW Challenges helps universities identify when participant payments may create tax or National Minimum Wage risks and outlines the key considerations for managing those risks effectively.

Unfortunately, the recording of our heavily requested PAYE Settlement Agreement refresher session failed, but the slides and updated guidance are available online, a replacement recording is being prepared, and any PSA questions or discussions can be posted in this dedicated discussion thread.

You can read all about the latest tax, payroll and international news/guidance in TaxHE, published on the 9 July.

PROCUREMENT

The Higher Education Supply Chain Emissions Tool (HESCET) is being updated by the Technical Review Group, for release to members in the autumn. The main change is to move from calculating emissions factors based on classifying procurement using a consumer spending framework i.e. household method, (which is used to calculate the consumer price index) to a different framework based on standard industrial classification which classifies procurement on a business level (and is used to calculate GDP), which is more appropriate. A full update on this work is available on the website here.

FINANCIAL REPORTING

As many of you continue to get to grips with the new SORP, we’ve published dates for the next three editions of the SORP implementation forum. These are (free, online) one-our drop-ins hosted by Matthew Knight (Chief Finance Officer at University of Surrey) for BUFDG members to explore issues and solutions in a peer to peer format, focusing on the sharing of technical queries. There will be no formal agenda, topics raised in advance will be prioritised. The dates are 15 September, 24 November, and 27 January. Notes and recordings from previous forums and presentations can be found here and there is a wealth of SORP resources and information on our SORP Knowledge Hub.

Academics from Lancaster and Loughborough University have been involved in helping the Financial Reporting Council understand how corporate reporting is adapting to the use of AI. The summary is that, while use is growing, much of it continues to be ‘human led’. There is significant caution in using AI due to the risk-averse nature of public reporting, where “even minor inaccuracies can have significant reputational implications”. However,  automation appears to be “most advanced in areas that are rule-based, data-intensive and lower risk”, including “data extraction, consolidation and reconciliation, standardised compliance tasks, and identification of anomalies and inconsistencies”.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

Bookings are now open for the next BUFDG Research Finance Forum, taking place on 14 October at half-1. These are free and online – and are run to help members connect with colleagues working in similar roles and discuss sector relevant research finance topics, funder requirements, and anything else that’s on your mind. When booking, please specify discussion points or topics you would find useful, and we will do our best to shape the session around these.

UKRI has published its new 5-year strategy, with Chief Executive Ian Chapman taking to Wonkhe this week to explain it in more detail. There’s a increased alignment with the government’s existing priorities around things like computing / AI and clean energy, as well as more hard targets such as supporting 20,000 new doctoral studentships by 2031, and halving grant-processing times. Wonkhe’s James Coe digs deeper and adds his own thoughts in an article here.  

SUSTAINABILITY / ESTATES

If you operate a CHP or are within range of an existing or potential shared heat network, then you'll be interested in this excellent new report from DESNZ and the Energy Systems Catapult, which looks at the current state and longevity of CHP systems across the public sector, including universities, and what the realistic options are for replacement as they (a surprisingly large percentage) come to the end of their working lives over the next decade. This includes cost comparisons, the significance for decarbonisation plans, and the importance of starting to plan now. While the report is worth poring over, it’s not too late to sign up for the the accompanying webinar on 16 July to hear and discuss first-hand.

PENSIONS

Many of you will have already picked up the good news that there is to be a reduction in the TPS employer contribution rate to 17.68% from April 2027 - an 11% decrease. There is plenty of coverage of the announcement, including commentary from UCEA. You can read Julia’s explanation and join the discussion via this post on the BUFDG discussion boards.

And if you missed it in the last Digest, you can also catch up with the latest Pensions Newsletter. Apart from the specifics of the TPS changes noted above, it’s still very relevant.

In related news, First Actuarial are running a free webinar on 11 August covering a range of pensions-and-education issues for Finance and HR teams.

JOB OF THE FORTNIGHT

Our Job of the Fortnight is for a Finance Operations Manager at the University of Liverpool. The successful candidate “will demonstrate the thorough understanding of debtors and creditors ideally within higher education, transactional flow, and have excellent analytical and investigative skills and have a good understanding of reporting, mitigating risks and setting controls within their area of responsibility.” The deadline for applications is 31 July.

As usual, there are lots of other vacancies listed on the BUFDG jobs page.