ESFA Update academies: 17 August 2022
Published 17 August 2022
Applies to England
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1. Reminder: you have one month to complete the school-led tutoring year-end statement
The deadline to submit the year-end statement is 6:00pm on Friday 16 September 2022.
This is a mandatory return. You need to complete this form if your institution received school-led tutoring funding in the 2021 to 2022 academic year, even if you have not used it.
Failure to submit your form will result in your full funding allocation being recovered by the ESFA.
If your institution has chosen not to use the school-led-tutoring grant, completion of the year-end statement is still mandatory, but it will be a shortened two-step process.
The deadline to deliver any school-led tuition this academic year (2021 to 2022) is Wednesday 31 August.
We have published technical and policy guidance (which includes FAQs and scenarios) and a tutorial video for schools and academies, to help you complete the form.
A tracker and calculator tool is available to help institutions complete the year-end statement, even if they have not been using it all year.
You can read more on the school-led tutoring grant on GOV.UK.
2. Information: trust automation of the accounts return – webinar and dial-in session dates
Many trusts are now enjoying the benefits of the academies chart of accounts (CoA) and automation. If you would like to know more about the CoA and automation, please consider joining one of our webinars. We are also continuing to run monthly dial-ins sessions.
2.1 Webinars
Dates are now available for our next set of webinars which are introductory presentations to talk through the CoA and automation. Each session will last one hour and will include time to answer questions. The dates and time for the MS Teams webinars are:
- Thursday 18 August 2022 at 3pm
- Thursday 15 September 2022 at 3pm
- Thursday 20tOctober 2022 at 3pm
- Thursday 17 November 2022 at 3pm
- Thursday 15 December 2022 at 3pm
You can join via MS Teams online.
Alternatively, you may join by phone using the following details:
020 3321 5238 (conference ID 191 510 554#), however, you may miss some of the details of the presentation.
2.2 Dial-in sessions
There will be no planned presentations for these forums, they are open drop-in sessions for trusts to ask us questions about the CoA and automation and ask your peers about their experiences of adopting the CoA. The dates are:
- Wednesday 21 September 2022 at 11am
- Wednesday 19 October 2022 at 11am
- Wednesday 16 November 2022 at 11am
- Wednesday 21 December 2022 at 11am
You can join these via MS Teams online.
Alternatively, you may join by phone using the following details:
020 3321 5238 (conference ID: 332 127 134#)
These dates are also available on our webpage, which also includes the chart of accounts and comprehensive guidance.
3. Information: summary of new items added for the 2021/22 academies accounts return
We have added a document to the academies accounts return guidance page to help trusts and their auditors prepare for the accounts return later this year.
As in previous years there are a few amendments to the form, mainly to cover any new reporting requirements and to improve the user experience.
In summary, the main changes to this year academies accounts return are:
- additional question asking trusts whether they have outsourced the completion of the online form
- new SOFA fields to report Recovery premium and legal fees on conversion
- land and buildings section for Single Academy Trust (SAT) prepopulated with data keyed in the tangible fixed assets tables
- new benchmarking field to report COVID-19 Government funding for MAT Central services
- updated guidance on sensitivity analysis and average future life expectancies for trusts that are part of multiple LGPS
- updated guidance on how to report employer national insurance contribution in Staff costs in counterparty section.
Please review the document for detailed information on the changes and additional information requirements.