October 2021

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the Schools Finance October Bulletin.

School Finance Team

As you may be aware, Rubina Kudhail will be leaving LBH after nearly 3 years with the team to take on a new role with Ealing Council. We wish her good luck, health and happiness for the future.

A replacement Schools Finance Officer has been recruited and is currently completing her notice period with a view to starting next month. In the interim period, we have sourced some experienced temporary cover and Rubina's schools will be contacted directly with full details.

Recovery Premium Grant

In February 2021, the government announced a one-off recovery premium as part of its package of funding to support education recovery.

The recovery premium provides additional funding for state-funded schools in the 2021/22 academic year. The following points summarise the grant details:

This is new one-off funding for state-funded schools in the 2021/22 academic year.
Building on the pupil premium, this funding will help schools to deliver evidence-based approaches for supporting the most disadvantaged pupils.
Funding allocations are £145 for eligible pupils in mainstream schools and £290 in special schools, based on the Pupil Premium and LAC numbers recorded in the October 2020 Census.
Funding is being paid to schools in 4 tranches, starting in the October 2021 Cash Advance.
Schools are required to show how they are using their recovery premium effectively.

Further information can be accessed on the following link:

Using pupil premium: guidance for school leaders - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

It is recommended that schools create a new cost centre code to ring-fence this academic grant. For example, cost centre code 603 (if available) and link the ledgers codes as suggested on the LBH's Example Cost Centre-Ledger Code-CFR Code structure, see attachment.

School-led Tutoring Grant

As part of the Department for Education's (DfE)'s education recovery plan, the Secretary of State for Education is providing financial assistance to eligible local authorities, for their maintained schools, and academy trusts. This is in accordance with section 14 of the Education Act 2002, in the form of the school-led tutoring grant for the 2021 to 2022 academic year.

This grant will give schools the flexibility in determining how best to provide tutoring intervention to support catch-up for lost education due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The following points summarise the grant details:

School-Led Tutoring Grant is being introduced as part of the National Tutoring Programme in 2021/22. Eligible state-funded schools will receive a ring-fenced grant to source their own tutoring provision for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils who have missed the most education due to COVID-19.
The programme allows access to Academic Mentors and Tuition Partners through the NTP and is funded by the DfE (75% of the cost will be subsidised and the remaining could be funded via Recovery Premium or Pupil Premium).
Funding is calculated as £18/hr for 15 hours of tutoring required for FSM pupils registered, based on 60% of Pupil Premium numbers recorded in the October 2020 Census.
The grant is being paid out to schools in 3 tranches (termly), starting in the October 2021 Cash Advance.

Further information can be accessed on the following link:

School-led tutoring: conditions of grant - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

It is recommended that schools create a new cost centre code to ring-fence this academic grant. For example, cost centre code 602 (if available) and link the ledgers codes as suggested on the LBH's Example Cost Centre-Ledger Code-CFR Code structure, see attachment.

SEN Payments Reconciliation

Following the move to SEN top-up payments being made through the Controcc provider portal, we recognise that, given the way that the cash advance made recurrent adjustments to funding, there is a need to carry out a full reconciliation for all schools. This will ensure that we correctly calculate any adjustments needed for schools following the change to the payment mechanism. As there are approx. 100 schools that this needs to be completed for, I am sure you can appreciate it is not a small task. However, I can assure you this will be completed and adjustment payments made through the cash advance before the end of the current financial year.

VAT (Reminder)

As HMRC have recently completed a Business Risk Review of VAT. This has prompted the local authority VAT Team to request that we remind schools of the following:#

A VAT invoice issued by a supplier is a legal document that should not be altered by anyone other than the Supplier who issued the invoice in the first place.
If you think the supplier has under calculated the VAT, you should only recover VAT shown on the tax invoice, not a greater amount, even if you have paid the higher value. You should contact the supplier that has made an error in the calculation of this VAT and ask them to issue a credit note and re-invoice as appropriate.
If you think the supplier has charged too much VAT, the wrong (increased VAT) value should not be claimed. The supplier should be contacted to raise a credit note or correct the invoice as necessary.
It is common to split a single invoice line across a number of cost centre codes, but you should ensure that the correct amount of VAT is recovered. You will need to be careful that rounding does not increase the VAT recovered.
If multiple lines are being entered into the Finance system, make sure that each line is coded to the correct VAT Code and the combined total agrees to the invoiced VAT.

For further detailed guidance on processing the invoices to the correct VAT Codes, please see the attached guidance.

Hillingdon LEAP

Please access ALL education information and weekly updates from the Education Improvement & Partnerships Team via Leap

The Schools Finance Team policies, guidance and documents can be accessed on the link here: Finance - Leap

SBS Helpline and email

SBS provides a helpline to schools for technical questions:

Telephone: 0345 222 1551 option 8

Email: sbsonline@schoolbusinessservices.co.uk

Please continue to contact your link officer for finance queries.

Kind Regards,

Schools Finance Team

Attachments

Example Cost Centre-Ledger Code-CFR Code Structure 21-22 [33KB]

VAT Guidance Appendix A&B revised December 2019 [152KB]