ESFA e-bulletin for academies: 4 January 2018
Published 4 January 2018
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2018
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/esfa-e-bulletin-4-january-2018-issue-201/esfa-e-bulletin-for-academies-4-january-2018
1. Action: submitting academy trust audited financial statements
The deadline for academy trusts to submit their financial statements and auditor’s management letter was 31 December 2017. If you have not yet submitted your financial statements, please do so without delay as this deadline has now passed.
2. Reminder: accounts return due 19 January 2018
The 19 January 2018 deadline for trusts submitting their accounts return is fast approaching. If you have not yet submitted your accounts return, please ensure that you have processes in place to meet the deadline. Please refer to the academies accounts return guidance on GOV.UK.
There is an issue with the accounts return questionnaire, which relates to the land and buildings sections of the online form and the following question:
- Does the Central Trust own any Land and Building assets rather than the individual academies?
Some trusts have rightly answered “no” to this as they don’t. However, answering “no” hides all of the land and buildings sections of the online form. To get around this users will simply need to:
- login to the AR form
- review the questionnaire and check to see the answer for this question
- if “no” is selected – change this to “yes”
If you have answered “no” and reached the approval stages, please ask your external auditors to reject the form, un-tick academy trust approval and amend the questionnaire answer and relevant land and building pages.
The accounts return online form will be unavailable from 8am to 11am on Friday 5 January for essential maintenance. This will not affect any data already completed.
3. Information: leadership equality and diversity fund
The leadership equality and diversity fund supports schools to develop local solutions that help teachers from under-represented groups to progress into leadership.
DfE is looking to appoint 8 lead schools to coordinate delivery of multiple school-led projects across each region. Applications for grant funding are invited from schools wishing to coordinate the delivery of leadership equality and diversity programmes in each region.
As the regional leads for the E&D fund, lead schools will have a supporting role in shaping the delivery of the E&D fund in their localities and contribute to the career progression of teachers with protected characteristics.
Find out more and apply on GOV.UK.
4. Information: new threshold levels for procurement
Providers should note new threshold levels for procurement that came into force on 1 January 2018 for all public bodies.