Bursar Briefings - Agenda Suggestions s1

WBC Bursar Briefing October 2016

Thursday 13th October, Council Chamber, Shute End

Chair: Yoke O’Brien Minutes: Katherine Vernon

Action 1 Welcome and introductions – Yoke O’Brien Welcome to Kirsten Foster - Walter Infant, Liz Woodards – Sonning Primary, Robert Sales – Hatch Ride Primary, Helen Hooper – Rivermead Primary, Donna Munday – Foundry College, Jo Murphy – Lambs Lane Primary, Sarah Bamford – St. Teresa’s Primary. 2 General Update – Yoke O’Brien National Funding Formula consultation in March 2016, we hope schools would have responded by the deadline in April 2016. Removal of ESG (Education Services Grant) which equates to a £1.8m cut for WBC in 2017-18 which covers central services such as School Improvement. Apprenticeship Levy – Employers with a pay bill greater than £3m must pay a 0.5% levy. We will inform mechanism of how 0.5% is paid in due course once we know more details. What counts as your pay bill Your pay bill will be based on the total amount of earnings subject to Class 1 secondary NICs. Although earnings below the secondary threshold are not counted when calculating an employer’s NICs, they will be included for the purposes of calculating the amount of levy the employer needs to pay. Earnings include any remuneration or profit coming from employment, such as wages, bonuses, commissions, and pension contributions that you pay NICs on. We will not charge the levy on other payments such as benefits in kind, subject to Class 1A NICs. More information is on the GOV.UK website https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apprenticeship-levy-how-it-will- work/apprenticeship-levy-how-it-will-work Early Years 3-4 year old funding – We are currently awaiting the outcome of the consultation with regards to the change in the EY funding formula with effect from April 2017 and the impact of 30 hours free childcare for 3 to 4 year olds for working families that comes into effect in Sept 2017. September Budget Monitoring – Returns due in on Friday 21st October please.

Yoke said she had reviewed the schools previous budget monitoring and was concerned that the final outturn was sometimes a long way from the budget. Some of the school business managers discussed the difficulties and asserted that they always did their best. Yoke had conducted this review because of her concern that many of the schools had in year deficits i.e. they had consumed all of the previous year’s carry forward in balancing the 2016/17 budget. We always ask you to be as accurate as you can with your schools forecast but in these challenging times this is ever more important.

3 Property and Facilities Traded Service – Paul Simmons and Rodney Hing Property Services gave notice of their intention to change the current offering. WBC Property Services have become a shared service with RBWM. In order to align the shared service the current traded service will end at the end of March 2017. The new offering will be effective from 1st April 2017. New offer will mean that budget management lies with the schools. Schools will pay a management fee up front, and then pay for what is required throughout the year at cost. The management fee has not yet been calculated but it will be based on school size, plant and number of reactive calls in the past. Generally the current conditions of our schools are good. The new helpdesk will quote a ticket number and arrange for a contractor on your behalf. Depending on whether you need someone the same day, within 24 hours or with 7 days, will dictate the price you are quoted. There is a limit of £400. If the contractor believes the cost of repair will be greater than £400, they will make the site safe, and then provide a quote for the works required. - 1 - Paul Simmons will send to schools their current condition surveys, including VA schools. A PS condition survey is carried out usually every 5 years. Paul Simmons will send to schools their reactive maintenance and service costs for the past 2 PS years.

Questions- Q - What about big ticket items such as a new roof? A - Please raise with Paul Simmons or Rodney Hing.

Q – Are new build snags classed as reactive? A – Capital projects are warranted by WBC for 12 years – latent defects clause.

See presentation – “Schools Maintenance Proposals 2017-18”.

4 Schools Finance Update – Liz Goddard

1. September 2016 Budget Monitoring - The deadline for submission is Friday 21st October – earlier is fine! If you haven’t already done it, a few reminders:

Run all the required reports off FMS at the same time Forecast as accurately as possible – we are not expecting forecast to exactly equal budget Provide explanations for all variances to budget which exceed £5k or 10% of the budget (@ CFR level). We will follow up any missing explanations. One error on the template which Diane emailed about on Monday this week re data not pulling through on I18 - all you need to do is go to the detailed tab (i.e. 3rd tab of the spreadsheet) look in column H for the line which has R9009 (PE and Sports Premium Funding) and key in “I18”. This will ensure that all numbers you have on I18 will pull through correctly to the summary tab.

2. Invoices for Central Payment - If possible can you send these in using PDF format. The way P2P’s system works this speeds up the process. Also – PLEASE send each invoice as a separate PDF. (It’s OK to send one single email, as long the attached invoices are separate PDF’s)

3. Imprests - Please DO NOT copy SFH in when you forward imprests to your head for approval – we cannot process them until we receive them directly from the head, so duplicate emails in the helpdesk risk leading to confusion. It is SBM responsibility to chase HT to forward imprests. We will always acknowledge them, replying finance email addresses (this is in addition to the auto reply that SFH issues) so you will know if we’ve received them.

NB Please remember to use the latest template from website every time you do an imprest claim – we have made some amendments to the journal tab which doesn’t change anything that you do, but it does affect our upload to WISER.

4. Journals - If you have a journal that affects another school as well as your own, please can you liaise with the other SBM to get approval from both sides but only one of you send the agreed journal into us. You can attach email approval from both schools but we are getting some journals in twice – because different members of our team man the helpdesk, this could lead to mistaken duplication.

- 2 - 5. WISER reports - As agreed – these will be sent out one or 2 days into the month and will include energy journals

RCOs - Register of Certifying Officers At the risk of repeating ourselves but for the benefit of those of you new to your posts… Please ensure your RCO is up to date – there have been a number of new heads as well as new SBMs recently, so these changes need to be reflected on your RCO. The “financial amounts” columns on the RCO must be completed – they cannot be blank. Add a column for the role of the person on the RCO. Add column for Procurement Cards. Advice on best practice on setting RCO from Internal Audit The head’s approval limit should be agreed, and then approval of any items exceeding this limit must be backed up by FGB minutes. Once approval of a project has been minuted, the head or CoG can sign off (with minutes attached to the invoice to evidence approval.) Guidance and the template on the website are currently being revised, so when you submit your SFVS next March, please also update your RCO using the new template. The CoG should sign off the completed RCO, and his/her name and signature should feature on the RCO – not with any financial amounts as this is not relevant but so we have a recognisable name and signature that we can check back to. No other governors should be on the RCO – they are not employees and do have that responsibility. NB for CoG – please can you give your Chair of Governors a school email address so if they email an authorisation into us we can verify it. If we receive emails from personal email addresses it is hard to check them.

Please note that any invoices sent in for central payment have to be approved in accordance with the school’s RCO and the above guidelines. We have to check these approvals before we pass invoices for payment (and that includes accompanying FGB minutes for any items in excess of the head’s limit). If items aren’t approved at the right level we cannot pass them. (Same applies for journals.)

Process notes for filling in SEN moderation forms have been updated and sent to all schools. Document is called “ENF Finance info and FAQ’s” and can be found here:- http://wsh.wokingham.gov.uk/learning-and-teaching/sen/enf/. The main change you will see is that when explaining how the £10k allowance is being consumed, individual interventions do not need to be separately costed out. The time of each intervention does need to be specified to show how the 20 hours is being consumed but interventions do not need to be costed out individually.

Problems with pension contributions Our audit team are currently working with LGPS and TPS to sort out the issue with pension contributions not reaching the provider. If you have already reported a problem to Vandana, then you may hear from Sheldon, who is on our audit team, if he requires more information.

Please contact Vandana if you are having problems with your contributions not reaching the provider.

Caterlink A reminder that Caterlink are exhibiting in the David Hicks Room in case you’ve not had a chance to visit them yet – they will be available after the briefing finishes. Also – hope your heads have made you aware of an email they received from Belinda Kennedy on 7th September re the extension of the Caterlink contract – this went to heads of schools which had committed to a 2 year extension of the Caterlink contract to 31st July 2019 and sets out the price increases to meals wef September 2017.

5 Procurement Cards – Jack Low WBC are in the process of changing all schools RBS Procurement Cards to NatWest procurement cards. Most schools will be transferred before Christmas. RBS cards are very - 3 - restrictive on limits etc, whereas NatWest are much more flexible, for example you can add as many cards as you require. With NatWest you will have internet access to your account so can make extra payments during the month.

6 Online banking and Bank Scams – Lianne Wright Be aware of new scams. See attachments, “Bogus Boss Fraud”, “Insider Fraud” and “Invoice Fraud”. Phishing – to make sure phone the company yourself. Cheque scam – interception of cheque and you are requested to make cheque payable to someone else – double check. When you log out of Bankline there is a good video to watch on fraud.

7 Selima Update – Chris Cahill There are 3 new employees at Selima. 2 in pensions, and 1 in payroll processing to help Tammy. 2 more are due to start soon. Chris’ actions – Slow absence reporting module in Vision “Idiots guide” to apprenticeship levy Communication to employees with regards to pension contributions (Support staff can sign up to Berkshire Pensions online).

Christmas payroll deadlines are:- Data deadline: 5th December 2016 Interim reports: 9th December 2016 Final queries by: 13th December 2016 Schools final reports: 15th December 2016 Payslips available: 16th December 2016 Wokingham’s Final reports: 16th December 2016 BACS submission: 20th December 2016 Pay day: 22nd December 2016

8 AOB See presentation “Added Value for Caterlink Primary Schools”.

Next meetings:

Cluster meetings North Thursday 17th November East Monday 21st November South 1 Tuesday 15th November Earley Tuesday 8th November West Wednesday 9th November South 2 Tuesday 15th November Woodley Monday 17th October

Briefings Spring Term Thursday 23rd February 2017 9.30am Council Chamber