BUFDG Digest 15 December

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

BUFDG / GENERAL

The most recent edition of our Chair’s Quarterly came out last week. The first article looks ahead to our Finance Festival next March, which is completely free to all BUFDG member staff, and for which registration is now open. It also covers what might be on an FD’s ‘worry list’, a broader view of internal audit, the surprisingly significant – and imminent – plastic packaging tax, and how to measure, monitor, and report social value in your procurement contracts. You can download the Quarterly here. And if you don't receive it directly, but would like to, click here to subscribe.

Karel’s ‘worry list’ article is a reflection on a roundtable session she was a part of involving the Chairs of university audit committees. You can read the summary of what sounds like a fascinating event on the HW Fisher website.

Universities Scotland has responded to the Scottish Government’s budget for 2022/23 and lament what amounts to a real-terms cut to core HE budgets.

Due to popular demand we've created a dedicated board for Research Finance discussions, and consolidated most of the relevant Research Finance posts on it. You’ll find the boards in the list on the main discussions page, or via this direct link.

If you're ever asked to use a procurement framework when obtaining services such as consultancy or advice, you may wonder what a procurement framework is and how to use one. Luckily, the Southern Universities Procurement Consortium (SUPC) has produced a series of short videos which help explain just that, as part of their Pocket Procurement Series. The videos are all really short (timings indicated after the titles) and include topics such as What is a Framework? (2:06), Finding the right framework (2:04), Working with Suppliers (1:58), and Framework FAQs (2:25). 

Universities UK has published its annual International Facts and Figures report, while NCUB has published its UKRI-funded annual summary of university-business collaboration, called the State of the Relationship.

TAXES

For a Brexit update: HMRC have issued a note raising awareness that it is Less than a month until full customs controls are introduced. The note sets out what is changing from 1 January 2022. There are also additional requirements from 1 January 2022 that apply for the import of products of animal origin (POAO) and animal by-products (ABP) from the European Union (EU) to Great Britain (GB).  Please see this alert from DEFRA for further information. This document from the Border and Protocol Delivery Group produced in November 2021 summarises the changes that are happening throughout 2022 while, just for completeness, the CE mark will be replaced by the UKCA mark from 1 January 2023 - please see this article from our colleague Ash in HEPA. For more information on all the above, read this summary article. If you have any questions, please contact Andrea.

The Government has published summaries of the responses to no less than five different consultations. The first is to its Call for evidence: timely payment. This considered the timing of payments of corporation tax and income tax liabilities. BUFDG responded to this consultation in July 2021 - please see our response here. Secondly, the Government has also published a summary of responses to its Call for evidence: the tax administration framework: supporting a 21st century tax system. The tax administration framework refers to all legislation, guidance and processes relating to how HMRC collects revenue and makes payments.

Thirdly, here’s the summary of responses to the Call for Evidence: Simplifying the VAT Land Exemption.  This consultation clearly generated a lot of interest – HMRC received 73 responses. BUFDG responded to this consultation in July 2021, - please see our response here, and click here for more information. And fourthly here’s the summary of responses  to its MTD for CT Consultation (BUFDG responded in March 2021). The main points in the summary of responses that are relevant to our sector are here.

Lastly, here’s the summary of responses to the Government’s Raising standards in the tax advice market. BUFDG responded to this consultation in May 2021, because our concern was that members should be able to discuss issues without it being regarded as “advice” requiring professional indemnity insurance (PII) - please see our response here. The government has decided not to introduce a mandatory requirement for tax advisers to hold PII at this time. There is going to be further consultation on: the Clarity on the standards required; Ensuring transparency, and; Effective enforcement. If you have any questions, please contact Andrea or Julia.

In a 6^th December update, HMRC has issued Examples of tests and calculations for Plastic Packaging Tax which includes examples of when packaging is within the tax given the proportion that is plastic. It is clear from this that a significant level of detail will be required. See the article in the most recent Chair’s Quarterly for background information on the new tax.

BUFDG were pleased to receive confirmation from HMRC that students are in fact clients/business customers of HEIs. Your response to that sentence may be “well, of course they are” however, the HMRC confirmation was necessary following a compliance review of one university.  HMRC had contended that an academic purchasing food for students should have been treated as staff entertaining. Read more about it in this summary article.

HMRC have published Call for Evidence: Umbrella Companies to invite views from stakeholders on the role that umbrella companies play in the labour market, and how they interact with the tax and employment rights systems. It sets out the concerns that have been raised by some stakeholders, as well as government action already taken to tackle tax non-compliance and improve protection for workers. For BUFDG to respond to the call for evidence, we would be grateful for your input and have reproduced those questions relating directly to HEIs below.  If you would like to be involved in this process, please provide your comments to julia@bufdg.ac.uk.

Remember you can read all the latest Tax news via the fortnightly newsletter. You can opt in to receive this directly via your BUFDG account.

ENVIRONMENT / SUSTAINABILITY

The DfE have released a draft strategy for Sustainability & Climate Change. The strategy will apply to the DfE, its arms-length bodies and the education and children’s services systems in England (which includes Higher Education). One of the core themes of the strategy is Operations & Supply Chains. You can read the detail and associated targets from page 21. The Department are running consultations over the coming months, which representatives from BUFDG and HEPA have been invited to, alongside sector organisations such as the EAUC.  If you have any feedback on the strategy then please do not hesitate to let Ashley know, who will ensure it is fed back to colleagues during the consultation.

The People and Planet sustainability league table of universities has been published for 2021. Despite the recent focus from across the sector, it suggests universities aren’t doing enough to meet targets, according to the Guardian.

PROCUREMENT

In addition to the Transforming Public Procurement: next steps webinar being held next week by the Cabinet Office, and following on from the Public Procurement Update and Case Law webinar held last month, Achilles are hosting what promises to be a fascinating webinar on Wednesday focusing on Reforming Public Procurement in the UK. The webinar takes place on 15 December at 14:00 and registration is available here.

The Cabinet Office has also just published its response to the Transforming Public Procurement green paper. 

A huge "thank you" to Georgina Laverack of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for an excellent webinar this week exploring the dangers of bid rigging. A copy of the slides can be downloaded here, and the resources she referenced are available via this article.

The HEPA Responsible Procurement Group Scope 3 sub-group is pleased to release an updated version of the Higher Education Supply Chain Emissions tool (HESCET). This version updates the DEFRA conversion factors in the tool released in February 2021 at version 3.4.  This version also maps Proc-HE code DZ to align with D.

OTHER

In an article in 2019 Cazenove's Ben Minter explored the impact of asset allocation and stock selection on portfolio performance. In 2021 he wrote a follow-up article to review the conclusions. He’s now kindly written a blog for BUFDG summarising the key findings and their relevance to University finance teams.

 The EU passed the Whistleblower Protection Directive on 16 December 2019. Whistleblowing is generally covered in the UK by the Public Interest Disclosure Act of 1999. Post Brexit the UK is no longer required to implement the EU Directive, however the Trade & Cooperation agreement does require the UK to uphold EU levels of employment protection. This may lead to some challenging situations for employers, and this article outlines what you might need to consider.

Amanda is looking forward to attending Wonkhe's Making Sense of Higher Education event in London on 14 February (Covid permitting), and if anyone else fancies talking all things HE policy, history, data and funding etc. on Valentines Day you can book your place here. Wonkhe are also running their Secret Life of Students event the following day (15 Feb), so you can even make it a double bill if you like.

There’s a fascinating bit of research (and summary article) courtesy of HEPI, looking at student perceptions of the finance system in England – on the basis that perceptions are often more important than ‘reality’.

University staffing has been under the spotlight thanks to new research at KCL. It’s a fascinating look at the history of HE, as well as the current structure of staffing in the sector. Here’s an explainer courtesy of Wonkhe.

The latest report from the Value Reporting Foundation (formerly the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)) looks at the importance of Integrated Thinking across an organisation. It’s a insightful read.

Finally, our Job of the Fortnight is for a Chief Finance Officer at the University of South Wales. The deadline for applications is 31 December. There are lots of other vacancies listed as usual on the BUFDG jobs page.