BUFDG Digest 22 February

BUFDG

There are fewer than three weeks to go until the start of the 2023 Finance Festival, 13-15 March.  Over 800 HE finance staff have already signed up. If you’re not one of them, but you’re intrigued by the choice of 37 informative (and completely free) sessions covering a wide variety of topics, you can find out more about the programme and speakers, and make use of the booking link via the BUFDG website here.

We have a few spaces left at three upcoming events. The first of these is a Time to Talk round-table on Credit Control on the 24^th March. This is a free event but members will need to register in advance and are invited to submit agenda items ahead of the meeting.

Next is our Strategic Finance Business Partnering training course on the 27^th and 28^th March, online. Spread over two 3-hour modules, the course is those who already have experience of operating in a Finance Partnering approach and wish to operate more strategically, further develop the effectiveness and impact of the Finance function, and gain increased organisational influence. This costs £260 + VAT.

Last but not least we have a course on effective data visualisation for Finance. Taking place online over two 3-hour sessions on the 29^th and 30^th March, this course will cover the key principles of effective data communication. It will be delivered by Alan Rutter, the founder of Fire Plus Algebra and a data visualisation specialist. If you have questions about any of these three events, please contact Rachel.

SECTOR / FUNDING

UCU has called off expected strike action due to reported progress made in the recent negotiations, but many workers are not happy about it. It does give us a chance though to revisit this article from David Kernohan in Wonkhe covering the ins and outs of the current pay dispute. We will also use it as a chance to plug an excellent new article from Exeter CFO Andrew Connolly on what is and isn’t a university surplus.

It was announced this week that another tranche of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme is expected to open to applications in autumn 2023. The last phase of the funding, which is providing £1.425 billion of grant funding to reduce emissions from public sector buildings over the financial years 2022-2023 to 2024-2025, closed on 31 October 2022.  We have recently collated a list of funding opportunities and information relevant to the decarbonisation of campuses, which includes the recently launched Heat Network Efficiency Scheme. The list can be downloaded here, and we will review this information on a regular basis. 

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt [yes he is] has received an unexpected bonus while planning for the budget announcement on 15^th March. According to the FT, higher tax takes and lower costs have led to the government borrowing over £30bn less in the year to January than forecast back in November. One of the contributors to the overall figure was the return to the Treasury of £1.6bn earmarked for Horizon Europe or equivalent domestic research. It is not clear whether this will remain unspent or just unspent this year, but some in the sector are not happy about it.

There’s an interesting article on HEPI that outlines the approach to student services and communication taken by Southern New Hampshire University, which is one of the largest in the US by enrolment. It’s essentially a discussion about automation, and when it should and shouldn’t be used. Even if it feels as if this kind of data integration is a distant dream (or nightmare?) for your own institution, it may still be worth reading to think about the direction of travel, and the steps your own institution may be able to take now to free up resources for where they could most effectively be deployed.

FINANCIAL REPORTING

A reminder that the FRED 82 ‘Draft amendments to FRS 102, The Financial Reporting Standard’ was published by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) in December 2022 with a consultation period running to 30^th April 2023.  Any amendments to FRS 102 will subsequently be incorporated into a new HE/FE SORP (SORP 2025), with the anticipated effective implementation date being for accounting periods commencing on or after 1^st January 2025.

BUFDG has established a small working group which will run through to the publication of SORP 2025 and we will be appointing a development partner to assist throughout this process. Sector specific guidance will be issued in due course. BUFDG will also be responding directly to the consultation document and all comments on this Discussion Board item will be considered in framing our response, so please do contribute if you can.

TAXES

A few universities have made unexpected direct debit payments to HMRC that are not for any university tax liability and others have stopped D/D payments leaving their bank accounts. Please do check your bank statements carefully. If you have made any unexplained direct debit payment to HMRC please email Stuart Small. He will check if it is for a genuine tax liability. If it is not, you will need to contact your bank. Where you have stopped the D/D payments before it has left your bank account – please still advise Stuart Small at HMRC. It is important that HMRC has the full picture of what is happening.

Over the past few weeks BUFDG has been working with AUDE and UUK to draft a joint response to The Building Safety Levy Consultation document issued by The Department for Levelling, Housing and Communities in November 2022. Our joint response can be found here. We are concerned because charities are potentially not exempt from this levy, but also student accommodation is a specific category of "relevant residential purpose" type accommodation that may not be excluded. The amount of the levy has not yet been determined, but it will potentially be collected by local authorities during the development of residential buildings and then passed back to central government.

As a reminder, we have been contacted by HMRC policy team on the use of the stipends concession at universities. They are seeking volunteers to provide direct feedback on the use of Statement of Practice 4/86, the current concession threshold of £15,480 and how you use HMRC's current guidance (including where you might find it confusing). Please consider getting involved as it will be beneficial for the whole sector.

We have received confirmation from HMT that the OECD has now published the Agreed Administrative Guidance for the Pillar 2 rules. This contains the easement we were hoping for that should mean that universities and their subsidiaries fall to be Non-Profit Organisations and so are not impacted by the minimum tax rate of 15%. You can find the guidance here (see 1.6, P27). Thanks to Harriet Latham (University of Glasgow) and Sally McKinlay (University of Oxford) for their work and support on this issue.

KPMG is hosting its next Global Indirect Tax Services (GITS) webcast on Wednesday 22 February 2023 discussing practical implications of the EU Commission’s VAT in the Digital Age proposals (‘ViDA’) published on 8 December 2022. ViDA is a set of proposals intended to modernize the EU’s VAT system for technological advances, reduce VAT compliance burdens, and help combat VAT fraud. The package is made up of three main pillars:E-invoicing and digital reporting requirements; Updated VAT rules for the platform economy, and; Single VAT registration. You can register for the webinar here.

Finally, HMRC has issued Draft guidance: Research and Development (R&D) tax reliefs, covering changes to the Research and Development (R&D) tax reliefs due to be implemented on 1 April 2023. This may be relevant to those of you whose subsidiaries claim this relief.

JOB OF THE FORTNIGHT

Our job of the fortnight is for a Head of Research Finance Office at the University of Glasgow. The successful candidate will “manage a professional service of circa 30 staff in support of the University's research and other services grants and contracts activity and lead the function which assists academic colleagues in winning grants and contracts, ensures that the terms of these are favourable to the University, and supports the management of the funds.” The deadline for applications is 1^st March.

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