Professional Financial Services: Consolidation and other accounting services to the EFA and the Department for Education

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) is an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE). Any resulting contracts will be entered into in the name of the EFA on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education.

Statute requires the DfE to produce a set of financial statements that include all central government bodies that are funded by the DfE. Academy trusts (ATs) funded by the DfE are classified as central government public sector bodies and are within scope of the DfE’s financial statements.

The EFA is the DfE’s agent in performing a consolidation of ATs’ financial statements into the financial statements of the EFA itself. The EFA’s financial statements will then be consolidated into those of the DfE along with the other agencies and NDPBs included within the DfE boundary.

The EFA is seeking to procure a long-term single service provider or consortia to provide specialist professional services and supporting ICT systems to enable this consolidation to be completed accurately and cost effectively. The EFA and the DfE are also seeking to procure professional accountancy capacity in addition to the resource needed for consolidation.

A contract of up to £25m (5 years) – £35m (7 years, total contract value) is planned to be awarded in November 15, for a period of 5 to 7 years. 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 consolidation. b) Overarching programme management of the end to end consolidation process through to delivery of the annual Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) return from the Department to HMT c) Land and building valuations for buildings used by ATs newly opening each financial year d) A rolling annual programme of land and building revaluation of the existing buildings used by ATs – commencing 2017 e) Annual International Accounting Standard Nineteen (IAS 19) Pension valuations for ATs f) Opening pension forms IAS 19 valuations for ATs that have converted from local authority maintained schools g) Build and maintain online data collection tools that facilitate data input and collation from ATs to support departmental reporting requirements h) Build and maintain a consolidation tool that includes validation tests for returns sent in by ATs. i) Quality assurance work on ATs’ financial returns j) Production of cleansed trial balances k) Production of group financial statements including WGA l) Co-ordinating the return of departmental data annually m) An annual programme of assurance n) 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