1. Finance admin sessions
CFL Finance
February 2014

2. Guest inputs Pensions - Teachers Diana Whyte Audit and Governance
Ian Withers – Audit & Governance Manager
Dave Phillips – Mazars Audit
SLA 14/15
Shirley Si-Ahmed
HCSS Bus
Rob Moorcock
In house Catering
• Parish Church Schools

3. Schedule
SLA 2014/15
• Croydon Schools Finance Team
Audit & Governance
Pensions update
Break
In house catering – Parish Church Schools
HCSS Bus
AOB

4. Proposed finance agenda
Team update - Latest news
Various odds - Training, Year end, SFVS
Funding 13/14 – Any issues
Funding 14/15 – An update including the latest information regarding the government initiative to provide a free school meal to all YrR,1&2 pupils
AOB – A chance to raise any other matters that may be relevant

5. Update on the CFL Finance team
Patrick Leavy is now close to fully trained and will take on more schools in due course.
Ingrid will be reverting back to her management accountant role after year end. Ingrid will be keeping a small number of schools and will also be available to provide short term back up and support when required.
Vanessa Newton is assisting Louise Watts with the monthly processes in schools.

6. Update on the CFL finance team – high needs
Janet Baidoo the Finance Manager that leads on high needs has just gone on maternity leave. She will be replaced by an interim business partner next week. In the short term, John Fennell will be the link between the LA and schools.

7. Funding

8. Overview of Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG)
DSG funds the majority of education activities
From April , made up of 3 blocks:
Schools Block
Early Years Block
High Needs Block

9. DSG – allocation to Croydon
The Department for Education (DfE) provide funding on a per child basis of:
Schools Block (£4,559.18)
Early Years Block (£4,564.33) – 25 hours!
These have remained cash flat for
The High Needs block is based on historic expenditure, some £51m

10. DSG – Croydon’s Schools Block
A funding formula is used to distribute Schools block funding to Schools
Academies are included in this formula, as it is used to calculate their funding
Croydon’s schools block is £ m in
Academy recoupment is expected to be around £80.0m in

11. DSG –Schools Formula The formula divides up the “pot” to each school:
It is staying very similar to the formula
AWPU has increased slightly
Prior attainment has increased in pot size
Mobility has reduced in total size, even though factor was doubled (change in criteria)
Lump sum reduced in secondary phase (but was re-distributed to secondary phase)

12. DSG –Schools Block Central Expenditure
Some education funding can be retained by the local authority to cover central items.
These are:
Admissions (£1,206k)
Termination costs (£213k)
Copyright licenses (£93k)
Schools forum (£39k)
Carbon Permits (£10k) - PRUs

13. DSG –Schools Block central items
Choice presented to Schools Forum around top slicing further amounts from the Schools block:
Key Stage 3 and 4 funding (£808.5k)
Growth fund (£4,690k)

14. DSG –Schools Block de-delegation
Choice presented to Schools Forum around services that maintained schools want to buy back from the Local Authority:
Union Facility time (£97k)
Support to under achieving groups (£200k)

15. Pupil Premium Grant Allocations are increasing in 2014-15: 2014-15
Free School Meals
- Primary
£1,300
£953 (£900)
Secondary
£935
£900
Looked After Child
£1,900
Service Child
£300

16. Catering – Free School Meals
The new arrangements come into place in September 2014.
How will the funding be calculated for the FSM pupils in YrR, Yr1 & Yr2?
Capital funding to cope with the increased capacity in school kitchens. How will it be distributed?
These questions are being looked at.

17. High Needs Funding
Changes to the way the funding is calculated from April 2014.
Potentially from Sept 2014, all new statements will be based on a Education Heath & Care Plans.
This is likely to change things a lot, with parents having more of a say into the support being provided. It can be TA hours, but likely to move to other areas of support.

18. High Needs Funding (Contin)
All schools including Special Schools must reclaim
funding from other boroughs for their Out of
Borough pupils.
• A letter will be coming out after half term to
explain the process. This will contain a list of
contacts at other LA’s

19. Various odds

20. Timetable of returns February / March 2014 March 2014 April 2014
School sets initial budget
Electronic version returned by 31 March
2014
March 2014
Schools Financial Value Standard (SFVS) and
Assurance
SFVS due by 31st March 2014 and must have been agreed by the governing body at a Full Governing Body Meeting before that date
April 2014
School submits Period 12 (quarter 4) return **
28 April 2014 or 14 April 2014 if school is in deficit
School submits the 2013/14 year end schedules and
preliminary CFR return (SFVS due by 31st March and must have been agreed by the governing body at a Full Governing Body Meeting before that date)
The end of year returns are due by Thursday 17th April 2014
May 2014
Scanned and signed initial budget
Signed version 1 May 2014 (might switch to 15 May 2014)
June 2014
School submits final CFR return
Electronic and scanned signed versions due by Friday 20th June 2014
**You should scan and a signed copy to within 4 weeks of the end of the period/quarter
(or fax a signed copy to CFL (Schools) Finance on
– please use a fax as a last resort)

21. Year End
The deadline for returns is Thursday 17th April The 18th is Good Friday, so no real time for slippage.
We have 13 working days, 9 of which are in the Easter holidays.
Your co-operation in managing to fit us in during the school holidays will be really appreciated.

22. Year end (continued)
The year end schedules template will go onto Fronter by 31/3/14.
However, we will load a non funding populated version after half term, which schools can use to enter accruals & prepayments.
Any unresolved funding issues for 13/14 should be accrued for.

23. Training Two SFVS bitesize sessions were held recently.
Two Year End bitesize sessions are scheduled for Wednesday 19th March 2014 at 9.30 and
These will be particularly useful to any new finance staff or anyone wanting to understand more about the process. They are being held in one of the IT rooms at Leon House, so there will be plenty of opportunity for ‘hands on’.

24. Balances/Deficits
Schools Forum looking at schools with apparent excessive balances and reviewing the balance analysis produced within the year end returns.
The process is likely to change next year with only specific targeted schools being asked to explain their excessive balances.
If a school enters a deficit position, then they need to apply for a licensed deficit and follow the procedure for deficit returns.

25. Balances/Deficits - continued
Balances are up by 27% across all schools from Q2 to Q3. Primary schools are up by 35%. Will the trend continue to Q4?
The total projected balance is around £6.5 million.
22 primary schools have balances over £100k, with 6 over £150k and 3 over £200k.
There are 6 schools currently in deficit.

26. Returns
Electronic or active spreadsheet so we can pull out the data from the cells
Signed so a picture (pdf) so we have a copy for audit
Scanned is preferred over faxed e.g. can read it e.g. receipt if by scanned, but cannot reply if faxed
There are two quarterly returns - a normal quarterly return - an analysis of balances
- Both need to be sent in electronically and scanned/signed.

27. Returns
We have been chasing hard this year to get all returns in by the due dates.
We are aware that some of you have been chased for returns and apologies if you think this is over the top or not within your remit. However we do need to ensure that the records are complete and we do find that some schools require few reminders. This is an Audit requirement and each school’s date of return is recorded and will be checked by Internal Audit when you are audited.
We do issue dates in advance and many are also on the Fronter calendar and Finance Matters.

28. Returns - SFVS This should be well on the way to completion.
We have received a number of returns already.
They must be: - updated from March 2013, do not just submit last year’s with no changes. - agreed by full governing body by 31 March fully signed by 31 March received by 31 March 2014.
Internal Audit check every SFVS when you are audited.

29. Returns – Book B (Contracts) / Bank Statement March 2014
Please start completing your Book B. It is for all your contracts /SLA’s THIS YEAR 2013/14. This is one of the most important documents in the academy conversion process so should be kept up to date. A draft template is available on Fronter within Other Useful Info.
March 2014 bank statement must be signed, scanned and returned promptly – this includes any deposit accounts linked to your main account and they both must be recorded in Book A.
It is important, as the CFL Finance department is externally audited every summer and several schools bank statements and contracts are part of that audit.

30. AOB - a chance to raise any other matters that may be relevant
BACS – an update.
Budget Template
LA debt collection SLA

31. Audit & Governance

32. Deteriorating Audit Assurance
Audit assurance for schools has steadily declined the last 4 years, so much so, that more schools have been assessed as having a limited or no assurance during 2013/14, as depicted in the following table:
Full
Substantial
Limited
None
2010/11 0%
77%
23%
2011/12
57%
43%
2012/13
48%
52%
2013/14 (YTD)
44%
12%

33. Deteriorating Audit Assurance
Schools should also be aware that:
Ofsted may consider the assurance of any recent internal reports when making their assessment.
Based on recent experience, ‘Limited’ or ‘No’ assurance final audit reports are likely to be subject to FOI requests and may be the focus of articles in local newspapers.

34. Deteriorating Audit Assurance
The Council’s Corporate Leadership Team has expressed concern regarding the results and at the Audit Advisory Committee meeting held on 3 December 2013 it was agreed that in future:
Head Teachers and Chairs of Governors for schools with ‘No’ Assurance reports would be invited to attend the committee to discuss their school’s poor performance and the actions being taken to improve this.
Schools with ‘Limited’ or ‘No’ assurance that did not engage with the follow up process or did not demonstrate satisfactory progress in implementing recommendations, would also be invited to attend the committee.

35. Common issues
The more common issues arising from ‘Limited’ or ‘No’ assurance School audits for 2013/14 have been:
Orders had been raised subsequent to the receipt of the respective invoices for the majority of the transactions sampled.
Goods or services received checks had not been evidenced for the majority of the transactions sampled.
Two references were not evidenced as obtained prior to employment

36. Other specific significant issues
Other specific significant issues identified in individual school reports included:
A head teacher’s salary had been increased from the wrong date and not with effect from 1 September as required. In addition, the ‘Pension Return of Salary and Service Information’ returns submitted for the same periods contained errors and did not correctly represent the salary changes.
Several one-off payments had been made to teaching staff, which were not in line with the School’s Pay Policy, or evidenced as approved by the Staff Committee.

37. Other specific significant issues (cont)
Occupational health checks had not been evidenced.
Evidence of right to work being obtained for the new starters sampled was not evidenced.
There were a number of instances where the staff DBS checks had not been renewed and DBS checks the governors were not evident.

38. Moving forward
In order to assist schools and help them improve their governance and control environments, the following are either in place or planned:
An ‘Audit, Governance and Anti-Fraud’ room has been set up on Fronter.
The Chair of Governors meeting in January 2014 was attended.
Governor training on internal audit has been and will continue to be provided.

39. Moving forward (Cont)
The current school audit test program is readily available on Fronter.

40. Moving forward (Cont)
Presentations have been made at the bursars/finance manager meetings.
The ‘Financial Governance & Audit Working Group’ of the School’s Forum meets to inter alia monitor results of school internal audits to identify areas of common weakness and make recommendations for actions to address these.

41. Moving Forward (Cont)
The Governance Team is available to visit schools and advise on governance matters.

42. Moving forward (Cont)
The ‘Governance Newsletter for Schools’ is produced.

43. Contact us Governance Team Chief Executive's Department
London Borough of Croydon
12th Floor, Zone B
Bernard Weatherill House
8 Mint Walk
Croydon CR0 1EA

44. Questions?