Professional Financial Services: Accounting and data collection services to the EFA and the Department for Education

The invitation to tender for the Accountancy Services: Accounting, data collation, validation and consolidation services has been published. Please see: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/8e0df12... Please see 'Update 28th July 2016' in attachments for the latest on this procurement.

Academy Trusts (ATs) are funded via the EFA. The Office of National Statistics has classified ATs as central government bodies.

This means that the Department, and the EFA as the Department’s agent, are accountable for reporting budgets, forecasts and actual expenditure of ATs. To meet this statutory requirement the Department has attempted to consolidate approximately 3000 academy trusts (5000 schools) into the group accounts as set out by HM Treasury’s Clear Line of Sight (CLoS) policy.

However the DfE, HMT and NAO all agree that the current approach now needs to change. The EFA has developed a new framework for reporting the financial performance and position of academy trusts, which is intended to address the existing consolidation issues.

The EFA will comply with Parliamentary reporting requirements by producing DfE and EFA group resource accounts on a grant basis and additionally deliver a Sector Report and Account which will aggregate ATs’ resource accounts. This will be augmented with improved budget forecasting for all ATs, DfE and EFA group accounts that state grant payments paid, and appropriate returns for Whole of Government Accounts.

This suite of reports will provide the necessary transparency and accuracy to provide the full accountability intended by CLoS. The success of this new approach will be more timely and accurate reporting of academy budgets, forecasts and net expenditure, along with the flexibility to meet the demands of the increasing volumes of ATs.

The service needs to provide access to reliable data when we need it; the collection of data should be automated with embedded checking, minimising manual intervention; not only should the burden on academies be limited but there should be an opportunity for academies to benefit from the sector data we have through automated benchmarking. The future processes need to be scalable with ministers’ ambitions and aligned with the EFA strategies of having a single account and a customer service ethos as established through the EFA’s Information Exchange.

The EFA is seeking to procure a long-term single service provider or consortia to provide specialist professional services and supporting data collection and data management expertise to enable the statutory reporting requirements to be completed in a timely, accurate and cost effective manner. If procured the contract term is likely to be between 3 to 5 years and a have a potential value of up to £35 m.

The contract term and potential value will be validated and tested as part our planned market engagement. Additional information: The required services, subject to ongoing organisational change, will include (but is not limited to): a) Provide technical accounting analysis, support and advice on the aggregation of ATs annual accounts. b) To develop and implement an automated end to end aggregation process through to delivery of the annual sector report and accounts and the Sector Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) c) delivers a fully digital solution that is integrated with other EFA services and complies with the data management strategy Supporting services required will include: d) Securing Land and building valuations for buildings used by ATs newly opening each financial year e) A rolling annual programme of land and building revaluation of the existing buildings used by ATs f) Annual International Accounting Standard Nineteen (IAS 19) Pension valuations for ATs g) Opening pension forms IAS 19 valuations for ATs that have converted from local authority maintained schools h) Build and maintain online data collection tools that facilitate data input and collation from ATs to support departmental reporting requirements i) Other unspecified accountancy services over the duration of the contract to meet business need for all other accounting, budgeting and financial reporting and management issues the EFA and the DfE handle through the work of their finance teams We intend to hold a market ‘bidder day’ event on Friday 19 February.

Further details will be communicated to those registering an interest to the email address above by cop Wednesday 17 February. After the market engagement bidders’ day there will be a number of “one to one” sessions held w/c 29 February (dates may be subject to change). Please see 'Update 20th June 2016' in attachments for the latest on this procurement.