BUFDG Digest 2 November

NEW BUFDG WEBSITE

We’re very excited about launching our new website very soon. We’re currently making the final touches and fixing the final issues and will be launching as soon as we can. The new website has a clean, modern design, some new sections and a restructure of some existing sections, and our hope is that it will make it much easier for you to find what you’re looking for (and to discover plenty of useful extras that perhaps you weren’t even looking for!). Once the final changes have been made, we’ll launch the new site and notify all members via email, including guidance on the changes we have made and top tips on how to use the new site. We can’t wait!

SECTOR / FUNDING

Once again, there are more political changes to report. You will have noticed we have a new PM, and that means a(nother) new Education Minister (Gillian Keegan). There appears to not be a dedicated universities minister this time around, but Nusrat Ghani has taken over the Science brief. If you’ve read the news over the last few days you’ll also be aware we’re back to the old new Home Secretary. 

Wonkhe’s David Kernohan – in conversation with Marc Finer at KPMG – has an interesting round-up article on the current state of finances in the sector. Looking at liquidity, investment, and borrowing, among other things, it paints a picture of significant challenges across the sector, where frozen fee levels are making it increasingly hard to meet rising recurrent expenditure. UUK president Steve West shares his thoughts in the comments section at the bottom.

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

You can book your place on our Management Accountants’ week taking place from the 22-25 November.  We will be hosting a series of webinars across a range of topics which we hope you will find interesting and valuable to you and your team members.  The webinars will take place throughout the day and we will update this page with the schedule.

FRAUD / SANCTIONS

The OfS has produced a blog looking at preventing fraud on university campuses – by which they mean making sure ‘taxpayers’’ money is only being spent on genuine, capable, and committed students who can understand English. Unfortunately, this isn’t the supportive, collaborative missive we may have been used to from the regulator in the past – instead, interested parties might want to know that “OfS are extending their regulatory work in this area” and working “with colleagues at the SLC, exchanging intelligence about individual providers that may be drawing down public funding for students who are not genuinely committed to their course”.

We mentioned this in the last Digest, but the team at VWV have prepared a note for BUFDG members on the impact of sanctions on the sector. It aims to alert Higher Education providers to the broad nature of the UK's sanctions regimes, and how they add to the obligations of pre-existing legislation furthering national security and anti-financial crime objectives. The way it is written emphasises sanctions against Russia for both topicality and illustrative purposes, but is just as applicable to sanctions regimes against other countries. Sanctions legislation applies throughout the UK, with providers in Northern Ireland needing to comply with UK, rather than EU, sanctions. We’ll shortly be hosting a webinar for VWV to talk through the note in more detail, and answer any questions. We’ll be posting the date and details in this discussion post as soon as we have them.

TAXES

It has been a turbulent time in employment taxes. From wondering how to pull back employment status checks for intermediaries, we are now ‘as you were’, as the government re-instates the Off Payroll Working rules for the public and private sector and keeps the basic rate of tax at 20% indefinitely (a 1% decrease had been planned). What will still go ahead is the removal of NIC increases and the Health & Social Care Levy. Although the 1.25% rise in dividends tax from April 2022 remains. However, with a new Prime Minister at the helm, we wonder whether there may be more changes at next week’s financial statement. You can read the full HM Treasury news story here.

Anyone interested in the IR35 U-turn might be interested in this article from the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT). The CIOT are pushing for a ‘strategic review’ of the factors that give self-employed relationships such an advantage - employer NIC in particular.

The latest edition of HMRC’s Employer Bulletin can be read in full here. Top articles include a reminder of how to pay your PAYE Settlement Agreement, PAYE reporting for early Christmas payments, and Student loans, among others.

HMRC issued a new guidance page signposting businesses, employers and the self-employed to the tax reliefs and allowances that may be available to them. This is a move in the right direction from HMRC as many customers struggle to find the ‘right’ place on the HMRC website. Of course, customers will now have to find this document…

We are thrilled that Vialto are once again running their face-to-face, global mobility roundtables for the HE sector.  All three meetings will be run in the afternoon, commencing at 2pm, and will be followed at around 4pm with a small 'welcome to Vialto' celebration with canapes and drinks.  I hope to see you there - click here for more information and booking for each event.

HMRC guidance on loan waivers and loan repayments has been updated to clarify the requirements for each to be considered a qualifying donation for Gift Aid relief. For Harriet Latham’s thoughts on this and its impact on the sector, please see this discussion thread.

As usual, for all the latest news and events covering both Tax and employment taxes, please read the most recent TaxHE newsletter.

PROCUREMENT

Electronics Watch have released their 2021 Annual Report as well as their Strategic Plan for 2021-23. The Strategic Plan sets out how Electronics Watch will strengthen its impact model by: expanding the scope of their monitoring and further building the skills and competence of their monitoring partners; enhancing the capacity of affiliates to drive change in their supply chains; and strengthening their industry engagement model.

The British Standards Institution (BSI) has published a pioneering national standard, giving organizations guidance on how to manage modern slavery risks in their operations, supply chains and wider operating environment. BS 25700 provides organizations with guidance for addressing the risk of modern slavery, including prevention, identification, response, remediation, mitigation, and reporting.

If you have ever wondered what the ‘Circular Economy’ is, then the Ellen MacArthur Foundation have produced a great three-part podcast to talk you through! The podcast features Ellen MacArthur and Joe Iles, EMF’s Circular Design Lead, and covers what a circular economy is, how it works, and shares some examples of it in action. You can listen to the podcast here, starting with the Back to Basics episode, moving on to the biological versus technical cycles and finally the role of people and design. The whole series is well worth a listen.

EVENTS / OTHER

Don’t miss out on your free place at the Scottish Universities Finance Conference in partnership with the Royal Bank of Scotland, which will take place in person on Wednesday 16th November at the University of Edinburgh. It is a welcome return for the event following a 3-year break.  This will be a full day event with a number of plenary sessions for all and additional breakout sessions which you can choose from. Find out more and book your place, and for any queries, please contact Rachel. 

We’re running our popular Introduction to HE for Professional Services Staff course on 7 December. This is a one-day development event aimed at all professional services staff within their first year of working in HE, who need to grasp the complexities and political environment of HE, and the implications for operating and influencing effectively. You can found out more and book through this link.  For any queries, please contact Rachel. 

WPM is holding its International Payments Summit on 22 November 2022 in London. The agenda for the day looks very interesting, with sessions covering The Changing International Payment Landscape, International Payment Best Practices/Experiences and Financial Crime: International Payment Scams: The Picture in 2022. You can find out more about the summit and register on WPM’s website here.

Our Job of the Fortnight is for a CFO at Writtle University College in Chelmsford. Along with taking on responsibility for the overall finance function of the University, “the CFO will also have a longer-term focus on strategy development and implementation with external partners and businesses” and will have “direct responsibility for financial accounting, forecasting, and funding together with legal, insurance and IT-related activities”. The deadline for applications is 19th November.

As usual, lots of other vacancies can be found on the BUFDG jobs page.