BUFDG Digest 30 June

BUFDG

We’re pleased to share the BUFDG Annual Report for 2021, which covers BUFDG activities since April 2020. As always, our aim is not to produce a glossy brochure for your virtual coffee table, but rather a balanced report of how BUFDG is run, the challenges we’ve faced, how we’ve adapted, and what our plans are for the coming year. What we hope it also captures is all the hard work that so many of you, our members, have put in to making BUFDG a success over what has perhaps been the most challenging period of the organisation’s history. Thank you!

BUFDG’s AGM was held last week and approved the budgets and governance arrangements for the next year. It also gave a thumbs-up to the conference arrangements for next year (2022), which will see the return of a free, online, multi-day ‘Festival’ in the Spring, followed by a face-to-face national Conference later in the year. We’re now in planning mode, and we look forward to sharing details of these as soon as we can.

This year’s conference brought together over 1,000 delegates and supporters. Many of the latter also ran enlightening conference sessions or produced additional resources, and all their details can be found on the BUFDG Supporter Directory page, loosely arranged into type/services provided. If you need a new supplier or external support for any project, make the Supporter Directory your first port of call.

SECTOR NEWS

HEFCW has announced its Accounts Direction for HEIs for 2020/21. For Scottish providers the guidance is here. English providers are still waiting on news from OfS, but few changes are expected from last year.

A recent HEPI article by Prof. Sir David Melville explains how universities are key to regional development, and makes the case for further government support for the sector’s role in ‘Levelling up’. It’s an argument made in NCUB’s response to the government’s regional Levelling-up inquiry, and in the recent Getting Results for Scotland report by Universities Scotland. In related news, UKRI are encouraging researchers to apply for Horizon Europe funding, universities in Wales are setting up the Wales Innovation Network (WIN) in response to the 2020 Reid report, and 12 partner universities across the UK have launched Impact 12 - an impact investment fund that hopes to eventually raise up to £8m for suitable projects.

The DfE has announced new funding for higher level technical skills, including a new £18 million Growth Fund to support further and higher education providers to expand high-quality Higher Technical Education. In addition, there’s up to £10 million for Institutes of Technology to deliver higher technical short and modular courses in STEM disciplines, plus £2 million for manufacturing training.

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Our Finance Business Partner Foundation course runs across two days on 21 September and 1 October, and costs £260 + VAT. It’s for you if you wish to establish yourself in a Finance Business Partnering role and to set solid foundations for success.  It includes what true business partnering is, core partnering skills and mindsets, and tips and tools that can be used in practice at work to develop your role. It will be applicable for new or aspiring Finance Business Partners, Management Accountants who want to develop more of a partnership approach, or existing Business Partners who wish to refresh and track their progress. To find out more and to register, click here.

BUFDG are running training on 9 July for institutions who have to prepare US GAAP accounts from time to time.  The course is an introductory module aimed at members of finance who are responsible for producing the annual report along with creating the US GAAP “conversion”.  It will ensure that attendees understand the major accounting differences and areas of risk that need to be focused on (which will be covered in more detail on module 2). The course costs £195 + VAT, and more information and the booking link can be found on the course web page.

Our PHES colleagues at CHEIA are holding their annual conference online from 8-10 September. Delegates will be joining HE Internal Auditors from across UK, Europe and farther afield to hear from well-chosen speakers and to discuss and reflect on current issues facing the HE sector. The conference will be on Hopin, and for this year also welcomes Audit Committee members and colleagues who are responsible for managing internal audit contracts in institutions. Find out more and book on the CHEIA website.

EMPLOYMENT/PAYROLL

HMRC's June Employer Bulletin has been published and doesn’t introduce anything you probably haven’t already heard of or read elsewhere on the BUFDG website (other websites are available...), however, there is a useful reminder of the EU Settlement Scheme deadline and paying Class 1A via a P11D(b) even if you have payrolled benefits. Plus they mention HMRC’s ‘pay by bank account’ option rather than paying by corporate debit/credit card.

We mentioned in our last TaxHE the push amongst universities towards a hybrid working arrangement.  You may be interested in reading PwC’s research into the hybrid approach and reconfiguring office space.  The respondents were from all different sectors and highlights include: Majority of respondents expect to work 2-3 days per week remotely; The reasons for being in the office all point to team working and collaboration, and; Large majority of respondents will reconfigure office space to create more collaboration facilities. Julia and Andrea will be working on a project looking at the tax (and other) implications and consequences of hybrid working.

HMRC have added the text of the Multilateral Instrument and the 2013 Albania-UK Double Taxation Agreement to their tax treaties database.  For interest: Permanent Establishment is at Article 5 (quite standard stuff); Employment Income – Article 14; Article 18 has a Government service provision, and; There is no exemption for teachers/lecturers/researchers.

TAX

The Department for International Trade has a webpage called “EU business: taxes and tariffs” that might be useful to members if you are moving goods to another EU country or have VAT liabilities within a EU country.  On the DIT page there is a link to page on the “Your Europe” site which includes, amongst other things, details of how VAT returns can be submitted on line in EU countries plus links to general information on e-commerce and digital services.  This guidance does not go into the level of detail that the HE sector needs, but may be useful if you are trying to get an initial overview of an EU country.

The weekend before the G7 summit, G7 Finance Ministers slightly upstaged the event by announcing a new agreement on international tax reform.  A 15% global minimum corporate tax rate was agreed, an agreed tax reallocation principle to ensure the biggest multinationals pay a fair allocation of tax where profits are sourced and repealing unilateral DST.  The details are more thoroughly discussed in this KPMG article that heralds cautious optimism; major progress has been made but there is a great deal of complex work yet to be completed.

On 1 July 2021, the 27 members states of the EU introduce the “One Stop Shop EU VAT return” (“OSS”) which will enable businesses to register in one EU country and declare VAT on goods and services in all EU countries, and (probably of less relevance to the HE sector)  the “Import One-Stop Shop” return (“IOSS”) In case it is of interest to members, the Avalara website includes: An article providing an overview of the EU July 2021 ecommerce VAT Package; A guide entitled 2021 ecommerce EU VAT reboot (you need to register to get this free download); and A webinar entitled Get prepared: EU ecommerce VAT reforms are coming (again you need to register to access this).

If your university has subsidiaries, there are two recent news items that may be of interest. Firstly, HMRC has updated Work out and claim relief from Corporation Tax trading losses to include a new section about temporary extension to carry back of trade losses.  Members may recall that in the Budget 2021 the Chancellor announced a temporary extension to the carry back of trading losses from one year to 3 years, for losses up to £2,000,000 for accounting periods ending between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2022. Secondly, thanks to Elizabeth Aspinall-Johns for sharing this PwC article with BUFDG on 2020/21 UK Share Plan Reporting.

Sometimes you need to find an old Revenue and Customs brief – and when you do you’ll find this is a useful link.  It includes links to all RCB’s issued since 1 January 2017.  (If you are trying to locate old RCB’s this link on the National Archive includes links to briefs published from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2016.)

As discussed at the conference last week, HMRC has updated its technical query form/template.  Use it to submit queries to HMRC's HE team using this email address. Remember that HMRC should acknowldge your query within 5 working days.  If you do not receive an acknowledgement then send a chasing email. Andrea has archived all previous versions of the form, but if you spot any links to old versions please let her know.

PROCUREMENT

We are pleased to be running a session with Lloyds Bank which will explore the increasing risks facing the Higher Education Sector from Cyber Attacks. The session is free to attend and takes place via Teams on the morning of Tuesday 20 July. The session will be hosted by Andrew Connors, Head of Higher Education at Lloyds Bank, and Karel Thomas, Executive Director at BUFDG, who will be joined by Giles Taylor, Head of Resilience and Cyber Risk for Commercial Banking at Lloyds Bank, as well as Chief Finance Officer, Alistair Moffat, and Chief Information Officer, David Ford from the University of Hertfordshire who have kindly offered to participate in this session and share their recent experiences. Click for more information and to book your place.

Many thanks to Nicola Arnold, Sue Weston and Howard Moody for their excellent Time to Talk session covering all things Jisc. The agenda explained what Jisc do, what frameworks and DPs are available, as well as a more specific overview of the Microsoft offer for universities through CHEST. A recording of the session is available here, and it can be shared within your team and across your institution. In addition, there’s a useful summary document mentioned in the presentation, that can be accessed here.

The Cabinet Office have released a new Procurement Policy Note (PPN) which provides guidance to remind public bodies of the requirements of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 to publish information about opportunities and awards over certain low value thresholds on Contracts Finder. Part 1 of the guidance replaces PPN 07/16 and it applies to all contracting authorities across the public sector, while part 2 of the guidance may be of interest to members but does only relate to central government authorities. There’s more information in this article.

Electronics Watch is holding its next webinar exploring “Is there Freedom of Association in Public Sector Supply Chains? Does it Matter?" on 30 June at 09:00.  The webinar is the first of a two -part discussion. You can register for the webinar here, as well as watch recordings of previous Electronics Watch webinars such as “Protests and Precarity - Can Public Procurement Drive Change?” and “Public Procurement in Times of Crisis and Beyond - Resilience Through Sustainability”. In addition, Electronics Watch has released its annual report for 2020, which sets out the positive impact that public procurement can have during a year that global supply chains were impacted by the covid-19 pandemic.

For more procurement news, have a read of the latest HEPA Digest.

JOB OF THE FORTNIGHT              

Our Job of the Fortnight is for a Deputy Director of Finance at the University of Leicester. The successful candidate will “lead, direct and manage teams responsible for effective financial performance and therefore increasing the financial resilience of the institution”. In addition, they will, among other things, “identify areas for improvement, ensuring major University projects have appropriate finance support and drive improved financial performance and deputise for the Director of Finance as required”. The deadline for applications is 4^th July.

There are other jobs listed as usual on the BUFDG jobs page.