BUFDG Digest 27 January

BUFDG

As attempts to control the spread of coronavirus continue and the period of lockdown looks likely to be extended beyond February, anything that has been hibernating will awake to a still-uneasy world. Usually at this time of the year, the great and the good of the world would have gathered in Davos for a meeting of the World Economic Forum. As well as filling an area of Switzerland with journalists and intelligentsia, the Forum has experience of delivering its sessions online, something that many conference organisers (including BUFDG) are doing for the first time this year.

Andy Westwood, one of the many eminent speakers at the 2021 BUFDG conference, has written insightfully in the TES about the post-16 proposals published last week “the autumn [is] when the real decisions will be made. That’s when we’ll find out how much funding will come with the “radical” vision for FE and whether the Treasury can be bothered to reopen the complex and costly arrangements for student finance across all post-18 routes.”

Booking for the conference is on a per-institution basis offering excellent value for money. 60 institutions have signed up to the BUFDG Conference to date, with most taking advantage of the group discounts, that enable up to 20 members of staff from each HEI to attend. We’re currently putting the final touches to the Social Programme on the evening of the Wednesday and Thursday nights which features, among other things, a guest talk by Dr Suzanne Imber – Associate Professor in Space Physics, and winner of the BBC2 series Astronauts: Do you have what it takes? We’ll be sharing full details in the next Digest.

In the meantime, remember to visit the conference programme if you haven’t done so recently – it promises five days of challenging and informative sessions, led by an enviable array of major speakers. And do also take a look at the conference supporters, without whom the conference would not go ahead. Many of these have pages on the Supporter Directory – if you need support in any area, the Directory is a good place to start.

And if you’d like to attend, and you’re not sure whether your institution has registered a space for you already, talk to us or to your FD.

FUNDING AND CONSULTATIONS

A flurry of announcements from the DfE appeared last week and at long last, the Westminster Government published an interim response to the Augar HE funding review. There is more to come in a Spring consultation, with the final answers in the next Comprehensive Spending Review, but for now, fees are frozen. A consultation on post-qualification admissions reform, a response to the Pearce TEF Review, and a letter from Gavin Williamson all made it clear that the DfE has risen to the challenge of filling any gaps left between the old HEFCE and the OfS. Williamson’s letter will not have gone down well in London HEIs who will see a 14% cut in the teaching grant to be redistributed elsewhere, for the 2021/22 academic year but it’s not just London institutions who are considering the impact of the latest announcements. Questions about whether other funding streams will receive similar treatment are being asked in university virtual corridors but institutions can use the imminent OfS “consultation” to make their concerns known.

While colleagues in Universities might think that the Skills for Jobs White Paper is of no interest, they would be wrong as there are big implications for universities as well as colleges. A new report, by The Independent Commission on the College of the Future has added to its suite of reports with The College of the Future for Wales, which calls for “a radical shift in the role of colleges in the future vision of education and training in Wales so that they can truly deliver on the lifelong learning that is needed.”

CORONAVIRUS

The Universities Minister confirmed to English HEIs that staff, along with certain students, will be eligible for twice weekly LFD tests; that the requirement for a confirmatory PCR tests after a positive LFD test will be temporarily removed from next week; and that the current arrangements for testing and partnering will remain in place for this first phase of weekly testing up to 15 February. All four nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) have now published updated guidance on student returns in the Spring term. UCU continues its campaign against returning to campus. SHMA updated its legislation and guidance trackers for England, Scotland and Wales; reported HE Covid cases in Wales are updated. 

PAYROLL / EMPLOYMENT TAXES

HMRC have issued a number of updates to their Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme guidance pages. Here’s a summary:

• Additional examples have been added to HMRC’s guidance to help you calculate your employees’ wages if they are paid a fixed annual amount – located at 3.14 and 3.15 of the guide
• A new section on the Employment Allowance has been added to HMRC’s guidance on how much you can claim. It covers situations where employers have claimed the employment allowance and also claimed under CJRS for employer NIC; you can only claim for one at a time.  If you have claimed too much, you will need to contact the employer helpline
• HMRC have issued guidance for employers who do not want their CJRS claims published (on serious risk of violence or intimidation); this link now includes an online request form
• The templates for submitting claims for 100+ employees has been updated and can be downloaded

KPMG have written this article for those employers who stopped using JRS last year but are considering returning to it, highlighting the differences between old and new and what to watch out for.

You may not have realised but those employees who are part of your cycle to work scheme who have been working from home due to Covid, would fall foul of the conditions for a tax exemption. This is because the rules state that the equipment needs to be used predominantly for home to work travel. Thankfully, HMRC have provided an easement to all employees who are part of cycle to work schemes but having to work from home due to Covid.  Read KPMGs article setting out the rules and the easement here.  The ICAEWs article also includes a link to the Finance Secretary's letter confirming the easement for those of you who want extra credits.

LUPC, along with many universities has made the commitment to pay the independently calculated Living Wage rates to all staff in London. Their paper, from the latest Linked magazine explores the different wage options in the United Kingdom and considerations that should be made when procuring goods and services, from a wage rate perspective. The paper sets out some questions buyers can ask regarding a supplier’s stance on paying the living wage and other practical considerations to help in procurement activities. If you want to keep up with all national minimum wage and connected issues, keep an eye on Julia’s posts on the Payroll pages.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report suggests “Climate change—to which no one is immune—continues to be a catastrophic risk.” While universities are focussing on the immediate impact on their own organisation, the EAUC and the COP26 Universities Network have launched the new guidance to support the development of further and higher education carbon offsetting policies. Climate experts from six UK HE institutions contributed to this guidance to support universities and colleges in their journey to reach net-zero. If you haven’t caught up on the recent Energy White Paper ‘Powering our Net Zero Future’, take a look at the HE sector’s energy procurement organisation TEC’s take on it.

FINANCIAL REPORTING

If you’ve been working your way towards implementing Integrated Reporting, whether nominally or ‘officially’, then you’ll be interested to know that the IIRC has published revisions to the <IR> framework in January, to enable more ‘decision-useful’ reporting. The IIRC says “the revisions focus on a simplification of the required statement of responsibility for the integrated report; improved insight into the quality and integrity of the underlying reporting process; a clearer distinction between outputs and outcomes; and a greater emphasis on the balanced reporting of outcomes and value preservation and erosion scenarios.” You can find out more about the changes on the IIRC website here, and the revised framework here.

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

There are a couple of forthcoming webinars to bring to your attention. Firstly, if you’re looking to develop your Agresso management information reporting, then you can join colleagues from across the sector to discuss this on the 11^th February, at 10am. There’s more information in this discussion. Secondly, you can join Tribal, among others, to look at improving your financial strategy – using sector benchmarking data to support investment decisions, at 2pm on Tuesday 16^th February. And you can find all other forthcoming events via the website.

PROCUREMENT

For a number of years, the UK Universities Purchasing Consortia (UKUPC) has been providing their membership with annual Scope 3 emission reports for monitoring and reporting purposes. The reports are issued following a process of collecting and analysing members non-pay spend data and then further breaking the spend down into Proc HE level 2 categories. The spend against each Proc HE code is mapped to a defined list of DEFRA categories for which conversion factors - calculating value to carbon - are allocated.  This data is then input to the Higher Education Supply Chain Emissions tool (HESCET) where the final report is produced.

Over the past year, members of the Responsible Procurement Group, UKUPC, the Environmental Association for Universities and colleges (EAUC) and HEPA have been coordinating with DEFRA and academics to update the conversion factors used in the HESCET tool. There’s a project update for interested parties now available on the HEPA website.

In case you have been hibernating, don’t miss the Cabinet Office’s Green Paper for transforming public procurement. The stated aim is to make public procurement less restrictive and bureaucratic and allow for more innovation and diversity in the supply chain. The new legislation will be based on the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) which the UK is now an independent member of providing access to 48 markets and based on the principles of: fairness, transparency, impartiality and non-discrimination. It is proposed that the new legislation will enshrine in law values and objectives that the HE sector holds dear. If we want to demonstrate our value-add to society, procurement using this list of principles is a great way to reach organisations and people who may not have any other obvious connection to universities.

The Cabinet Office’s consultation on the Green Paper closes at 11.45pm on 10 March 2021. If you have any initial feedback, please feel free to send that to Ashley at HEPA, your regional procurement consortium or feedback directly to the Cabinet Office. 

A quick reminder that the Procurement Value Survey (PVS) for your institution’s 2019/20 submission closes this week on 31 January. You can find out more about the PVS here and if you have any queries, please contact Ashley. 

For details of three forthcoming HEPA events, covering EU Exit Logistics & Freight Forwarding, Import Duty: EU Trade Deal and Rules of Origin, and Influencing your Organisation, check out the latest HEPA Newsletter.

TAX

 Last Thursday Andrea and Julia published a ‘mini’ TaxHE newsletter, covering a whole range of topics including MTD, the Tax Conference, Brexit, VAT and more. Since there have been plenty of other updates added, so you may also be interested in:

• Revenue and Customs Brief 12 (2020): VAT early termination fees and compensation payments
• Northern Ireland: HMRC issue further narrative  on ‘At risk’ and ‘not at risk’ goods
• Inward or Outward processing relief and INFs
• Claiming preferential rates of duty between the UK and EU

For more updates, keep an eye on the latest Tax news.

EVENTS

BUFDG is partnering with ARMA, AUDE, CHEIA, HEPA, HESPA, SCONUL, UCISA and UHR (our equivalent for professionals across the Research, Estates, Internal Audit, Procurement, Strategic Planning, Libraries, IT and HR) to offer online Action Learning Sets to Senior Leaders.  An Action Learning Set is a small, confidential forum where each participant brings to the meeting an organisational task, problem, challenge or opportunity on which they intend to act.  Having presented the issue to the group, other participants pose questions and raise discussions which help the presenter create insight and options for action.  A structured process, supported by a skilled facilitator, is used to ensure that everyone has personal ‘air-time’ as well as the opportunity to contribute to the learning of others.  It is through the experience of taking action on return to the workplace that promotes reflection, learning and personal development.  Given breadth of knowledge and wider HE understanding is a valuable development experience, these Action Learning Sets provide a fantastic opportunity to learn from others across the sector. Find out more information on the BUFDG website.

FINALLY…

Our Job of the Fortnight is for a Financial Controller at the University College of Estate Management. “In this new senior leadership role, you will oversee all financial operations of UCEM, and lead the Institution’s financial reporting, controls and planning processes. You will also be responsible for assessing the financial performance of the Institution, as well as identifying possible risks.” The deadline for applications is 5^th February.

For other vacancies, take a look at the BUFDG Jobs page.