BUFDG Digest 10 February

Hopefully you’re not shivering too much in the aftermath of the Beast from the East 2, whether it brought you exciting snow or just fog, sub-zero temperatures and biting winds. Apparently, next week temperatures in some places will rise to a dizzying 10 degrees, at a time when we all seem to need something to look forward to, whether that be the potential milder weather, or the (also only potential) easing of lockdown on 8 March. What you can look forward to with certainty though is the BUFDG virtual conference on 15-19 March, and it won’t matter if you’re in the middle of another blizzard as you’ll only have to travel from your bed to your desk/kitchen table/other innovative workspace to see our excellent presenters and your colleagues across the sector. See more below…

BUFDG CONFERENCE 2021 – BOOKING CLOSES NEXT FRIDAY!

Conference booking closes at the end of next week (19 February), so don’t delay and book your place (and places for your team) today!

If you haven’t been to conference for several years (or perhaps you’ve never been) due to cost and/or time (or other) considerations, why not try it this year? Tickets are great value, there’s no travel time or cost involved, and you can dip in and out when it suits you, with everything recorded for you to watch later at your convenience. There’s a wide-ranging conference programme, including formal presentations, discussion sessions, and even social sessions, as well as plenty of opportunity to ‘chat’ with other delegates and even set up video meetings one-to-one or as a group. The strange circumstances we all find ourselves in could mean that this is just the year to give it a try...

Social sessions at the conference will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, with a University Challenge quiz on both evenings, a spell of online magic on Wednesday and a talk from the inspirational Dr Suzanne Imber and Reggie Blennerhassett on Thursday. 

If you’re curious to understand just how it will all work, then have a look at our video explaining how to use Hopin, our online conference platform.

CORONAVIRUS

Anthony Forster, Vice Chancellor of Essex University, writes a Wonkhe blog this week, about the proposals put forward by a group of VCs to compensate students for the pressures placed on them by the pandemic. He discusses how the solution to the current problem must address inter-generational fairness and help to avoid longer-term consequences for this generation and wider society.

FUNDING AND CONSULTATIONS

With another reference to inter-generational fairness, and looking at ‘fixing’ funding issues more fundamentally, HEPI has issued a debate paper arguing for student loans to be replaced by a graduate contribution scheme. The paper also proposes that the funding regime should include contributions from graduates who benefited from a free (or at least considerably cheaper) education in the grant era.

The Scottish Government has published its Infrastructure Investment plan for 2021/22 to 2025/26 with its Capital Spending Review, confirming investment of £1,582.1 million in research and knowledge exchange activity across universities, underpinned by additional capital investment in university research infrastructure.

The FE and HE sectors in Scotland will also benefit from investment in digital connectivity through the £600 million Reaching 100% programme; £25 million investment to deliver the next five years of the £5 billion City Region and Regional Deals programme; and the conclusion of £75 million investment in the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland to stimulate.

When considering government funding in England, and how the HE sector might fare in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), Nick Hillman, Director of HEPI, argues that one of the biggest problems the HE sector faces is that universities have ‘no friends beyond their borders’.  We need allies not only in the Department for Education and HM Treasury, but across all government departments, as government funding decisions are ‘part of a lattice’.

Hillman provides some suggestions for how to make more friends. The HE sector needs to search out and emphasise areas where its interests and the Government’s interests closely align, such as ‘levelling up or civic engagement or greater provision of Level 4 and Level 5 courses or closer collaboration with FE colleges or rejuvenating town centres or research breakthroughs’ (so actually quite a few possibilities to pursue). The sector also needs to look for ‘smart ways to show policymakers there is an appetite to hold down costs where it does not mean reducing the quality of education and research’ including ‘a continuing commitment to sort out the enormous USS pension deficit’. He also suggests fostering relations with more MPs in your region rather than just your own constituency MP, especially if your MP is an opposition MP, and inviting them to campus to help address ‘an insufficient understanding of the breadth of our higher education sector’. This is an interesting point, considering many universities are in opposition-held parliamentary seats.

And it’s about playing the long game – the CSR might be delayed again due to pandemic-related urgent issues, but universities should use the time to build the relationships we need.

DfE has just published a report compiled by London Economics, titled EU exit: estimating the impact on UK higher education. The report looks at the effect of changes in the level of tuition fees on international student enrolments at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and the potential impact on EU student enrolments and associated tuition fee income resulting from various possible changes to tuition fees, loans and grants for EU students.

It concludes on various different scenarios, but taken together, the estimated combined impact of all of the various policy changes would be to reduce tuition fee income from EU sources by approximately £62.5 million, with 35,540 (57%) fewer first-year EU enrolments. However, the aggregate impact on fee income masks significant variation by university cluster (and level of study), details of which can be found in the report.

GENERAL

In case you haven’t seen it on the FD discussion board, the Motion Picture Licensing Company (‘MPLC’) is contacting student accommodation providers to attempt to charge them for licences to enable certain TV content to be viewed on site. Their current charging mechanism is based on a ‘per bed’ calculation but a consultancy firm has proposed a different basis, which would reduce the charges to a more reasonable level. Check out the discussion for more details of both the problem and the proposal.

PROCUREMENT

For institutions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland it’s your last chance to complete your Procurement Value Survey! There are just three days left for your institution to submit its PVS response. The survey is essential in helping the sector demonstrate the value that procurement delivers, and provides an excellent tool for you to benchmark your performance against peers through a consolidated and anonymised report.  Make sure you submit your PVS by Friday’s (12 February) deadline.

The latest HEPA Digest was issued on 2 February and also includes an update on the Cabinet Office Green Paper on transforming public procurement, and masterclass training arranged by the Cabinet Office on a number of topics.

TAX & PAYROLL

Member input is needed on the latest HMRC consultation on Making Tax Digital for Corporation Tax. Andrea and the BUFDG Tax Group have already pulled together a draft response, and Andrea would love to hear your views and feedback on that response by 19 February.

Plenty of news on the intricacies of post-Brexit movement of goods rules, as more becomes clear by the day, has been added to the Tax news page.

HMRC has won the appeal against the News Corp decision on e-newspapers in the Court of Appeal. News Corp intends to seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, so universities’ retrospective claims are not over just yet.

The latest TaxHE (BUFDG’s regular HE tax newsletter) from 4 February includes updates on extending your PESM adjustment deadline if you’re impacted by the TRAC submission delay, minutes from the latest BUFDG meeting with HMRC, India’s recent Finance Budget, plenty of Brexit updates, and so much more.

TREASURY

In conjunction with WPM we are running a survey to better understand how BUFDG members protect their payment data. The survey is aimed at Deputy Finance Directors across the sector. Your answers will remain anonymous, and will be used to collate a sector-wide set of results to better understand at a national level where responsibility for payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS) compliance sits, the involvement (or not) of the Data Protection Officer, and institutional data protection strategies.

Finalysis / ATFS are still publishing regular treasury bulletins, and the latest addition returns to the subject of card acquiring; it’s one in which it has worked with over 100 institutions to date, either via a review followed by negotiation with the incumbent or management/support of a tender process. Mastercard announced fee increases earlier this week, but for once there is negligible impact on the sector, so as well as confirming this, the firm has taken the opportunity to explain the main cost elements of card acquiring. This and prior bulletins can be found on the ATFS page on the BUFDG Supporter Directory. 

EVENTS & LEARNING

As usual we’ve got a packed virtual events schedule for you over the next few weeks across a huge variety of topics, for a wide range of our members.

Today (10 February) is the last day to register your interest in our next Action Learning Set which starts on 4 March. It costs £450 (plus VAT) and consists of six sessions across five months. Find out more about Action Learning Sets, and register your interest here (today).

We’ve got a Time to Talk for FDs, Deputy FDs and Heads of Finance on 16 February, when Tribal will look at how to Power-up your financial strategy, resilience and the impact of investment decisions.

Our remaining regional (or not!) FD meetings take place this month with the Midlands group meeting on the 17th, the South West on the 19th, the North on the 22nd, and London/South East on the 25th.

Deputy FD meetings are taking place in March – find out more and book your place.

For tax/VAT members, you can hear about one of our member’s own experiences with some VAT issues in the Time to Talk session on Zero-rating reliefs: Software on 24 February. And we’ve got another MTD Time to Talk session, where PwC will look at how to resolve issues in your MTD process mapping, on 25 February. And on 11 March PwC will follow up by taking you through getting ready to go live with MTD, ready for your first VAT return starting on/after 1 April.

We’re arranging some training on HMRC’s Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) tool on 1 March, and more details will follow – so hold the date and watch this space…  And we’ve got a Global Mobility – Working Holiday session from PwC on 2 March.

And finally, we’ve got a Time to Talk session on 11 March looking at Portfolio Optimisation with KPMG, and our regular Time to Talk Credit Control session on 25 March.

And there are some great events being run by other organisations that you might find useful too:

Our ‘sister-organisation’, the Higher Education Strategic Planners Association (HESPA) is looking at How to Keep Innovating, on 25 February, with the Chief Executive of the Eden Project, who is leading efforts to create Eden Projects on every inhabited continent on earth! Find out more here.

And UCISA is running a fascinating and very relevant webinar on The Shifting Axis of Cyber Crime – A time to re-think defence? also on 25 February. The event is designed to address the issues that arose from the recent UCISA presentations at BUFDG FD meetings – the desire for university executive colleagues to see cybersecurity as a leadership issue not simply an IT issue, and the fact that although CFOs are willing to make budget available, they need help understanding, and guidance as to how best to invest in, cyber-security. The speaker is Mick Jenkins MBE, the CISO for Brunel University and a former bomb disposal and counter-terrorist intelligence officer, as well as author of four spy novels with a sprinkle of nation state cybercrime. Mick has even produced an introductory document which you can read before you book. The introductory document, details of the event and booking, are all on the UCISA website.

JOB(S) OF THE FORTNIGHT

Our jobs page is very busy at the moment, so we’re highlighting THREE jobs this fortnight!

Firstly, HEFCW is looking for a Director of Policy and Funding to make a significant contribution to developing HE policy in Wales and contribute to the maintenance and development of a strong HE sector. The Director of Policy and Funding will lead the development of HEFCW policy and funding initiatives, ensure the effective operation of HEFCW’s Policy and Funding teams, and work with the Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive to contribute to the leadership of HEFCW.

Secondly, there is the Chief Financial Officer at the University of Oxford. The University is a ‘highly complex organisation’ and the role provides ‘strategic oversight of the University’s financial activities including all aspects of financial management of operations, reporting and risk management’ while reporting direct to the Vice-Chancellor. As well as delivering the strategic priorities, the successful candidate will also develop ‘additional revenue streams, including through commercial initiatives to help fulfil the funding requirements of the University’.

And lastly, the University of Manchester is looking for a Tax Assistant to focus on tax compliance across VAT and corporation tax, working closely with the rest of the tax team.