BUFDG Digest 9 April 2025

BUFDG

The Scottish Universities Finance Conference takes place on the 14 May at the University of Strathclyde. If you are a BUFDG member and work for a Scottish provider, you can find more details and book your free place here.

Looking ahead over the next couple of months there are plenty of other BUFDG events for you and your teams - Introduction to TRAC (8 May) Demystifying Finance and Budgeting in the HE Sector (3 Jun), Finance Business Partner Foundations (4, 5 Jun), Tax Conference (11, 12 Jun) and  Strategic Finance Business Partnering (18, 19 Jun).

The Education Select Committee hearing on the funding and finances of universities took place earlier this week. BUFDG were invited to send in a written submission, Parliament TV has the recording, and Wonkhe’s David Kernohan adds his thoughts here. Don’t forget you can always have a look at the kind of advocacy work BUFDG is involved on our Advocacy webpage, which shows our previous and upcoming meetings and links to relevant consultation documents.

SECTOR

Jim Dickinson has as couple of excellent articles on Wonkhe this week. The first looks at the current economic environment, the predicted direction of inflation, and the potential impact on student loans in England. Essential reading for your forecasting efforts. In the second, he wonders how long the ‘free-market’ approach to the English sector can be maintained and, via a detour to game theory, argues that we need to be more comfortable (and explicit) about universities straddling both public and private sector, and make policy that reflects this reality.

Also on Wonkhe, we read that the legal migration White Paper will be delayed until at least May, that universities need to be updating their risk registers and policies in response to the changes to consumer protection law, and the implications of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme for the sector.  

Elsewhere in the sector, OfS has published a brief on how students should be protected when universities and colleges close, including suggestions for providers on their contingency planning, and Prof. Antony Moss, PVC at London South Bank, argues in HEPI that the sector needs a long-term workforce plan.

In Welsh news, there’s an interesting article in Times Higher that examines the role of Medr and what it can do to help Welsh providers through the current funding crisis, while an article on the BBC News website looks at the Seren scheme and the pros and cons of funding significant numbers of Welsh students to study in England.

SCOTLAND

Scotland's’ Public Sector Heat Decarbonisation Fund has announced that applications for Phase 2 will open on 29 April 2025. The scheme provides grant funding for whole building approach projects that decarbonise heating systems and improve the overall energy performance of their buildings.

The Scottish Funding Council has published its indicative allocations for the 25/26 academic year, which include £727m for teaching (1.7% increase), and £368m (3.6% increase) for capital funding (which also covers research). Universities Scotland has published its response to the announcement, and while pleased for the cash increase, note that teaching funding has decreased in real terms. Wonkhe’s Michael Salmon takes a deeper dive.

In other news, Lorna Jack and Professor Cara Aitchison have been appointed as co-interim chairs of the funding council, while the 24/25 annual report of Scotland’s international education strategy has been published.

FINANCIAL REPORTING

A reminder that if you wish to make any comments on the exposure draft of the new FEHE SORP, please respond to the Invitation to Comment by Wednesday 30 April 2025.

A webinar to discuss the key points for the new FEHE SORP, including key changes practical guidance on preparing for implementation, will take place on Wednesday 7 May at 2pm. The session will be hosted by KPMG’s Accounting Advisory Services, and will cover the most crucial updates, the implications of the changes, and strategies for addressing them. Book your place now.  

Details will shortly be announced of six in-person regional training sessions being held in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds and London across May and June. These sessions will be an opportunity to understand the new SORP in more detail, ask questions and discuss with peers. Additionally, following on from this discussion board post with interest in a community of practice, we will arrange an online forum for members at end of June/ early July.

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

The UK Committee on Research Integrity has announced the launch of the refreshed Concordat to Support Research Integrity following detailed review and consultation across the sector. Since its inception in 2012, the Concordat has provided a national framework and reference document for practice and governance of research integrity in the UK, and the review aimed to ensure that it retained its relevance and application in today’s fast-moving environment. Organisations have until April 2026 to adhere to the new expectations, including those related to annual statements.

The OfS has published the independent review (undertaken by KPMG) of technical aspects of the Margin for Sustainability and Investment (MSI) calculation, used in TRAC. The review is extensive and includes a number of clarifications (see 1.3.3 onwards), including the treatment of endowments, and whether MSI continues to be allocated on the proportion of TRAC expenditure.

The Department for Science, Innovation, & Technology (DSIT) has published its funding allocations for the 25/26 financial year. In total, £13.9bn will be distributed, including £8.8bn for UKRI, and £2.7bn as a contribution to Horizon and other EU programmes.

UKRI has updated the payment profile for QR funding, with some of the funding originally scheduled for late spring/summer brought forward to March.

TAX (AND PENSIONS)

At the start of every new tax year, HMRC makes hundreds of changes to their guidance (et al), which triggers hundreds of emails to those who sign up for each and every one of them (thanks Andrea and Julia!). Here’s a quick (believe it or not!) summary of the main employment tax related updates/changes issued by HMRC.

Julia and Andrea have produced a Tax Overview of Spring Statement, including HMRC receiving £100 million of new funding for 500 additional compliance officers from April 2025, and late payment penalties for VAT increasing (also from April) to incentivise taxpayers to pay on time.

Every two months BUFDG hold an online Global Mobility roundtable event for members only, to discuss any and every global mobility challenge, issue, thought and query. The latest event was held at the end of March and we've produced some high level notes for your information. Our next roundtable will be held on Thursday, 22 May 2025. Vialto are also running the BUFDG/Vialto in-person roundtables in April - follow this link to pick the appropriate location to register for.

There are a huge amount of updates and upgrades to employment rights within the Employment Rights Bill, currently making its way through parliament. There are also a plethora of explanatory documents, factsheets, impact assessments and more to explain what the Bill will include, not forgetting the army of articles written by employment law specialists. We are certainly not the latter, but this article is the first in a series explaining the various measures included within the Employment Rights Bill and how they may affect finance teams (incorporating finance, tax, payroll and our HEPA procurement colleagues) within the higher education sector. As this is the first article, we'll ease you in with just a general overview of all the key measures. 

All the latest HE tax news and updates can be found in Andrea and Julia’s excellent TaxHE newsletter.

Finally, thanks to Julia for her extensive recent note covering all the updates to sector pensions schemes. It covers a wide range of news on TPS, LGPS, USS, SAUL, the Pensions Ombudsman, The Pensions Policy Institute, and HMRC.

MISCELLANEOUS

We've gathered information from our members about which financial and other systems they use, and captured the finance system for 123 universities/higher education providers, plus the systems/software used for payroll, expenses, CT returns, VAT returns, and global mobility for many of them. Members can download this list from the website here.

We have created two short guides to new and upcoming legislation that will impact universities and higher education providers, with the help of compliance and ethics expert, Keith Read. The new Failure to Prevent Fraud offence comes into effect in September 2025, and the FCA's Anti-Greenwashing rules have been in effect since May 2024.

Redwood Collections have written a blog about collecting overdue student payments, and balancing supporting struggling students while maximising recovery. Speed is of the essence.

Howden, the global insurance and employee benefits group, has completed the acquisition of Barnett Waddingham. It’s business as usual for the sector though - the name, and your favourite BW contact, will remain unchanged.

Applications for the annual Green Gown Awards are now open. For more information and timelines for submissions, visit the website.

Finally, our Job of the Fortnight is for a Finance Business Partner – Strategic Projects at the University of Reading. The successful candidate will need experience of “producing detailed financial business cases and investment appraisal”. They will report to the Deputy FD and be “providing high quality strategic financial information, forecasts and support to the University”. The deadline for applications is 21 April. There are lots of other vacancies listed on the BUFDG jobs page.