Academy newsletter April 2020 Archives - Grunberg & Co

Budget forecast return outturn announcement

admin — Tue, 05 May 2020 11:23:59 +0000

On 20 April, the ESFA confirmed that trusts are not required to submit their Budget Forecast Return Outturn (BFRO) this year. The deadline for submission was 21 May. (read more details here)
The next deadline for finance departments is the Budget Forecast Return 3 year (BFR3Y). At this point in time, there has been no extension or removal of this deadline. The online form will be available from 23 June, though Eileen Milner’s letter does refer to a ‘stop, pause and deferment of filing requirements’, so there may be more to come.
COVID-19 Governance issues for academy trusts
Like leaders of all businesses, academies have had to adapt and adjust to a different way of working over the past few weeks. (read more here)
How many could have predicted that a pandemic was the biggest risk for this year? It certainly hasn’t featured on any risk registers that I’ve seen.
Now that the initial chaos is over and the urgent tasks have been dealt with, it is time to look at governance.
The leadership teams will have had to make many decisions in recent weeks about who is in school, how children are being taught and covering sickness. They will appreciate any support offered by the Trustees at this time.
Trustees should still be holding meetings as required by the AFH, those these will be virtual on one of the many platforms available including Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Some of you will have experienced this already and need to consider:

Ensuring all Trustees have access
Meetings are quorate
How to approach decision making if holding a quorate virtual meeting is not possible. In such cases, a clearly documented audit trail of all communications should be retained.

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Additional funding available for exceptional costs during Coronavirus outbreak

admin — Tue, 05 May 2020 11:22:33 +0000

The Department for Education have announced some additional funding support for schools up to the end of the Summer term, in recognition of the work they are doing and the additional costs, in some cases, that are being incurred (read more here).
How schools can access funding
Funding will be available to cover costs relating to specific items which are judged as those likely to be necessary to provide appropriate support:

Increased premises costs connected with keeping schools open for the Easter holidays and May half term
Support for free school meals for children who are not attending school where these costs are not covered by the FSM voucher scheme
Additional cleaning required due to suspected or confirmed coronavirus cases, over and above the cost of existing cleaning arrangements.

Additional funding is only available to those schools unable to meet the costs or where they could only meet costs by drawing down reserves which would undermine their long term financial sustainability.
Schools who are budgeting to add to their reserves in the 2020-2021 school year will not be eligible to claim. Payment will be made from existing budgets and reimbursements will follow for costs, subject to the following limits:

Mainstream schools
250 pupils or fewer	£25,000
251 to 500 pupils	£30,000
501 to 1000 pupils	£50,000
Over 1000 pupils	£75,000

Special schools or alternative provision
All schools	£50,000

Pupil numbers are defined by:

2 to 4 year olds – headcount of funded places from January 2020
5 to 16 year olds – headcount from October 2019 census
16 to 19 year olds – pupil numbers from 2019 to 2020 academic year allocations.

Schools will need to keep appropriate records to support claims and we will expect to be able to identify the costs and the income when we audit the accounts.

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Is Furloughing now an option for schools and nurseries?

admin — Tue, 05 May 2020 11:19:31 +0000

The Government has provided updated guidance on whether schools, nurseries and other entities primarily funded by public money can access the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). It appears that some will be able to (read more here).
The guidance to date has been clear, organisations which are primarily funded by government and continue to receive that funding are not expected to access the CJRS. However, there is a sentence in the new guidance which says:
“Organisations which continue to receive government funding should not furlough staff whose salaries that funding could typically be considered to fund”.
This means that if the salaries are funded from other sources, e.g. from self generated income, then furloughing is an option. The full guidance goes on to say that “ due to the variety of organisations in the education, early years and children’s social care sectors and the different types of support on offer, it may be appropriate for organisations to access a mixture of different support”.
CJRS is seen as a last resort and organisations are expected to look at cost reduction and other funding generation such as loans before using the CJRS.
There are 5 conditions to be met before furloughing can be considered:

The employee works in an area of the business where services are temporarily not required and where their salary is not covered by public funding
The employee would otherwise be laid off or made redundant
The employee is not involved in delivering provision which has already been funded
(Where appropriate) the employee is not required to deliver provision for a child of a critical worker and/ or vulnerable child
The grant from CJRS would not lead to financial reserves being created.

State funded schools including academies:
The guidance reiterates that the government does not expect schools to furlough staff. However, it is now recognised that many academies generate private income through before and after school provisions, catering and lettings. If staff are typically paid from those private income streams, furloughing might be an option as long as the 5 conditions above are met.

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Letter from Eileen Milner to Accounting Officers 21 April

admin — Tue, 05 May 2020 11:17:23 +0000

In her letter to Accounting Officers, Ms Milner concentrates on the need for robust governance and strong financial management to deal with these challenging circumstances, including adjusting procedures and complying with the requirements of the Academies Financial Handbook. (Read more here)
Ms Milner refers to the expectation that Academy Trusts may see changes in their spending patterns and will be recasting budgets for a return to school, controls as detailed in the AFR have never been more important. Local procedures will need to be adjusted for remote working, board meetings and reviewing schemes of delegation.
Internal scrutiny, Ms Milner recognises that face to face visits are inappropriate at the moment but that trusts should consider remote checks. We are happy to adjust the internal scrutiny checks to cover those areas that can be covered. 2020 is the first year where a report on the full year has to be filed with the accounts in December and there is no mention of this being deferred.
Accounts are mentioned, but there are no plans currently to extend the deadlines.
Click here to view the letter

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