11 August 2021 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
Welcome to a short-but-sweet, Summer Holiday edition of the Digest.
PHES / BUFDG
on 1st August, the Association of University Legal Practitioners (AULP) agreed to be the sixth organisation to join PHES. We’re pleased to have them as part of the team. AULP are comprised of around 350 lawyers and other legal staff from across the HE sector, and we look forward to working with them more closely on issues related to both BUFDG, and to other PHES associations.
FINANCIAL REPORTING
The summer edition of the Financial Reporting Group’s newsletter comes after another unusual year. We continue to see changing working arrangements because of Covid19 and the flexibility it has shown we can support. As we complete our year ends and prepare for the next round of external audits, decisions about how and where the work gets done will be varied across different providers. What you can expect this year is a continued focus on going concern; public interest disclosures such as the access and participation funds, salaries, and pension schemes. You should also prepare for more challenges in relation to assumptions, judgements, and estimates. Once again, we are supported by the advice prepared and made freely available by the audit firms, the FRC, and the accountancy institutes. We urge you to consult as many as you can as you end.
Mercer’s discount rate advice as at 31 July 2021 for USS deficit calculation 2020/21 has now been released, and can be downloaded from this link. Actual discount rates derived as at 31 July 2021 are higher than those derived as at 31 July 2020. This will result in lower provisions at the 31 July 2021 year-end compared with those as at the same date last year.
Please use this link to download the updated 2020/21 model financial statements. The changes are minor and are easy to spot. They include the requirement for comparatives for A & P note, amendments to the pensions note for the 2020 valuation and several areas of clarification to the accounting policies.
The latest OfS Accounts Direction (applying to financial statements prepared for accounting periods beginning on or after 1st August 2019) is available to download from the OfS website.
Finally, to discuss any or all of the above, please make use of the Financial Reporting area of the BUFDG discussion boards.
MA / TRAC
UUK is running a costs and financial sustainability survey to find out “how costs of provision are changing post-pandemic and what is driving them. The questions in this survey will also be used to better understand the nature of liquidity in the sector following the recent publication on financial sustainability from the Office for Students.” UUK requires a single response per institution, and the link has been sent out through other channels. However, if you work with this data in your institution, please speak to colleagues to ensure a response, and don’t assume that ‘someone else will do it’! Thank you.
The latest TRAC data analysis for 19/20 has been published by the OfS. In response to several member queries we have received recently - the annual guidance update for TRAC submissions is usually published around now, but at the time of writing we are still awaiting clarity on whether TRAC (T) submissions will be required. The most sensible approach would perhaps be to assume that submissions will be required for the 2020/21 academic year, unless you’ve been advised otherwise by the OfS or your respective funding council.
Please be aware of both the forthcoming TRAC Conference on the 27th and 29th September (online), and the new Introduction to TRAC course (across a number of online sessions in November), and book soon using the links above if either is of interest.
Finally, have you ever been asked by colleagues to provide a breakdown of research deficits by discipline? If so, you might be able to contribute to this discussion.
STRATEGY / PLANNING
Tribal is seeking around 8-10 universities to join in with a new Performance Benchmarking pilot project, that combines both its Financial Benchmarking product and the Student Barometer survey, to “bring transparency to the correlation between resource allocation/investment and student experience.” The project extends work with several individual institutions over the last two years, and the aim is that the comparison data available from a broader project “will help participating institutions decide on appropriate levels of investment to improve specific areas of performance, and inform the development of robust, evidence-based strategies to improve financial resilience.”
There’s more information on the dedicated pilot project web page.
TAXES
Big news announcement from HMRC confirming the closure of the Customs Handling of Imports & Exports Freight (CHIEF) on 31 March 2023. The Customs Declaration Service (CDS), currently used for NI and RoW declarations will take over from CHIEF. CHIEF will be withdrawn in two stages: 30 September 2022: import declarations close on CHIEF; 31 March 2023: export declarations close on CHIEF / National Exports System (NES).
The National Insurance Contributions Bill 2021 includes new measures on NIC reliefs under the freeport and veterans schemes, as well as imposing reporting requirements on employers for arrangements that aim to avoid NICs. HMRC have issued a technical note explaining how they intend to use the powers in the NIC Bill 2021. There’s more information in this article. We have not commented on the Freeports relief as they will not be relevant to universities but if you would like to find out more, please contact Julia.
Other VAT & CUSTOMS updates: With Julia’s normal warning of “Andrea will check this when she’s back from holiday”, here at the latest HMRC updates, publications, etc.
Following their recent article discussing Holiday pay for term time employees, PwC will be presenting a Time to Talk session on the same subject along with other NMW updates. Find out what you need to be aware of, what challenges this may cause and some practical solutions along the way; plus discuss issues with your fellow members.
OTHER
The Cabinet Office recently ran information sessions covering the National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS). In case you couldn’t make the sessions, a recording has been made available which you can access here. If these upcoming changes are relevant to you then the recording is very much worth watching.
Our Job of the Fortnight is for a Finance Business Partner at Staffordshire University. The successful application will “be a pro-active self-starter, a desire to learn with a keen eye for detail and have proven experience working within a finance environment”. The deadline for applications is the 15th August.
There are lots of other vacancies listed on the BUFDG jobs page.
