24 March 2021 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
CONFERENCE 2021
On Saturday evening my 2-year-old leaned back on his potty, stretched out his feet, exhaled, and exclaimed “What a day!”. I’m not exactly sure who he picked that up from, but it certainly echoes my feelings (and those of most of the BUFDG team) of our days last week, and of the week in general.
For last week was Conference week and, in case you’ve been inside a BUFDG-proof box for the last six months, was the first time we’ve taken our big annual event online. It was frantic at points, but in the end it lived up to (and in many ways exceeded) our highest expectations, and we hope our attendees – whether delegates or supporters – agreed.
Firstly, there are the sheer numbers - 7 plenaries, 34 workshops, 20 breakout sessions, 4 socials, and 135 speakers and chairs. 769 delegates and 164 supporters took part across the week, representing 140 HEIs and nearly 80 supporting organisations.
Then, the quality of the sessions themselves, which many felt were enhanced by the participation in the ‘chat’ box, and the volume of questions from participants who may otherwise have been less willing to put their hand-up in a big lecture-theatre environment. Right from Andy Westwood’s scene-setting first thing on Monday morning, through to Dr Paul Redmond’s fantastic Friday afternoon close, the learning points were at times inspiring, surprising, insightful, thought-provoking, transformational, and amusing, to list just a few adjectives!
There’s a round-up of the programme, supporters and other information on the conference website, where those who attended the event will also be able to access the slides and video recordings. If anyone from a delegate HEI needs access to recordings with captions for any sessions, then please let Amanda know which sessions you need captioned, and we’ll be able to provide these for you.
We still have very little idea of where next year’s event will be, and what it will look like, so if you are in receipt of a feedback survey link, please do click and complete it. And if you would just like to have your say more informally, Matt or Karel would welcome an email.
GENERAL / CONFERENCE
While the conference recordings are only available to ticket holders, we will be making a few of them available to all BUFDG members over the coming weeks. We’re pleased that the first of these is an insightful presentation from Sarasin and Partners, which explores how universities can create a positive impact with their investments. You can watch this on Sarasin’s Supporter Directory page.
Those who were at Andy Westwood’s session may remember talk of ARIA – a new proposed government agency. On Friday BEIS issued this statement on how the agency might work, and yesterday the Bill itself passed the first hurdle in parliament. We are piecing together the financial implications for universities (income recognition, payroll liabilities, VAT etc.) and will share this with you once we the picture starts to emerge.
Two of the other well-attended sessions at the Conference were Tilney’s session on staff financial wellbeing, and the Friday morning plenary led by Lloyds, looking at how finance teams can influence their universities and support a green recovery. Both sessions have been supported by recent blog posts on the BUFDG website, so if you can’t access the recordings, do have a read of what David Vallance at Tilney and Andrew Connors, Lloyds have to say. And if you’d like to write a blog for us in future, drop Matt an email with your idea.
TAX
HMRC have issued a document called Things to consider when you appoint a customs intermediary. Members might find that this is a useful "check list" to run through, especially if you need a specialist customs agent. It includes commentary on Your business requirements, How many declarations you need to make, Licensing, special handling and other controls, Timing – goods that need to arrive quickly, Training and support, What you need from an intermediary, Information sharing, and Northern Ireland.
Some members may have been following the Wellcome Trust case, which considered whether the Trust was receiving the fund manager services of managing its investments as a taxable person - if it was, the result being that the place of supply of the services would be the UK and therefore subject to the reverse charge; if it was not, the place of supply would be where the fund manager was established and if there was no VAT system (or a lower rate of VAT than the UK applied) savings would arise. Wellcome Trust has lost the case, and it now brings to a conclusion any cases or claims that members have, which have stood behind Wellcome Trust. There’s more information in the article, and Grant Thornton's summary of this judgement can be found here.
Union Transit ( UT ) is a customs procedure that allows goods not in free circulation, non-Union goods, to move within the UK or EU, while customs duties or other charges are suspended. Common Transit extends the UT procedure to both Union and non-Union status goods moving to, from, through or between the countries that have signed the Common Transit Convention. There’s been an update on 23 March 2021 : Starting and ending transit movements in Northern Ireland using common and Union transit now has as additional section on the information that is required from 5 April 2021.
HMRC has issued this Policy paper on temporary alterations to partial exemption methods, where the pandemic has caused distortion. HMRC will be using an accelerated process to make sure coronavirus-related changes to partial exemption methods are considered, and where appropriate, approved swiftly. Andrea will be discussing this on the call with HMRC tomorrow and will hopefully provide further clarification, given that universities will have probably already carried out their PE annual adjustment on their January VAT return.
As expected HMRC have issued a range of consultation documents and summaries of responses to previous consultations in the last week. The ones that are most applicable to the HE sector are set-out in this article.
EMPLOYMENT
In case you missed it last time around, there have been a number of minor updates on HMRC’s website for ‘employer duties’. Take a look at all the information in the full article here.
PROCUREMENT
The Home Office last week launched a registry for Modern Slavery statements. You can search for statements within the registry as well as add your own. You will need to create an account in order to add your statement to the registry. We are aware of the issue with HEI financial years and are working with the Home Office / Cabinet Office to resolve this.
INCOME
Capita and Imperial College London both attended the conference and will be hosting a joint Time to Talk webinar titled Optimising Automation Efficiency: Income Processing & Reconciliation at 10am on the 20th April. First, Rob Leech & Nina Maunders from Imperial will talk about how they use an Income Management system to process and reconcile their income, and explain the benefits it has brought. The session will then cover how this can be utilised for time saving and efficiency gains, and Pay360 will explain how the system can be used standalone by any universities, whether they are customers or not. It’s free to attend, and you can register here.
FINANCIAL REPORTING / STATEMENTS
We will be holding two Financial Statements webinars. The first on the 27th April at 1.30pm and includes updates and forthcoming information. The second on the 4th May at 10:30 is a refresher and includes the FRG review of Financial Statements. Both will take place online. For more information and to book your place on either webinar, read the full article here. For any queries, please contact Rachel.
A reminder that BUFDG has a public-facing page that signposts to all of its members’ financial statements, which are available here.
MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING / TRAC
We’re running another (virtual) edition of our world-famous Intro to TRAC course. It looks at the TRAC requirements, what universities need to do to comply with them and how they can go about doing it. The course is aimed at members of finance staff involved in the implementation of TRAC within their institutions. It will also be of interest to more senior members of the finance team responsible for overseeing the TRAC process as well as to people from other teams.
Delivered in four sessions over 3 weeks, this course allows you lots of time to make the learning stick and apply it your individual TRAC work. It includes a mixture of tutor led training and support and individual learning. The course costs £195 plus VAT, and for any queries, please contact Rachel. No previous experience of TRAC is required.
OTHER EVENTS / TRAINING
Most, if not all members have now mastered the art of Zoom, MS Teams and other on-line platforms. Screen and slide sharing whilst still an art form for some (me included) is becoming more commonplace. Despite this some members have expressed a need to make on-line meetings slicker, more practical, and more engaging. HESPA and BUFDG have put together a course with a professional trainer to take you through the most common formats and the best way to deliver 1-1's, webinars, group meetings and workshops. This course takes place over 6 hours, split into two sessions on Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th April morning. The course costs £250 (plus VAT). You can find more information and book here. For any queries, please contact Rachel.
We’ve put together an online, facilitated workshop, which is all about how to develop your ability to influence within your organisation. Spread over two 3-hour modules on Tuesday 11th and 25th May, this course will help you gain insights into your own, and others’ communications preferences. It will help you know how and when to adjust your influencing style according to the situation, and be able to present compelling cases to non-Finance audiences to develop your credibility and impact. The course is aimed at anyone in a Finance role who needs to influence stakeholders to achieve goals when they do not necessarily have formal ‘power’ or authority over those stakeholders. It costs £395 (plus VAT). For any queries, please contact Rachel.
VACANCIES
Our Job of the Fortnight is for a Head of Tax at the University of London. The successful candidate “will have substantial experience in a VAT advisory role in a complex, dynamic organisation and previous experience of managing relationship with different stakeholders. Previous experience covering indirect tax advisory and/or compliance work within a commercial, University or public finance sector organisation is an essential requirement.” The deadline for applications is 12th April.
Here's the link to all the other vacancies.
