On Monday 15 June, we will be releasing templates for a simplified, COVID-19 specific financial return from colleges. These will be made available via GOV.UK. We will be asking colleges to complete and return the following documents by the 31 July 2020:
Monthly cash flow template – this is a slightly updated version of the template used in July 2019
Financial Health Calculator – this newly developed template calculates financial health with minimal information
Commentary – as with most ESFA returns we will be asking for some narrative to provide some context for the financial information.
The submission process will be the same as that used for the February 2020 IFMC collection, via the document upload portal on GOV.UK. As with the IFMC return we will run webinars, provide guidance along with the same mailbox and response process. We don’t anticipate colleges needing as much support as with the February IFMC return but we will monitor requests to ensure it’s adequate. Thorough testing will be carried out on the templates before release, however if issues are identified following publication, we will quickly issue any updated templates on GOV.UK. We discussed this proposal with colleges to ensure it captures the minimum information required to assess the financial impact of COVID-19 on the sector and individual colleges, whilst respecting finance teams are busy managing those impacts in their organisations. We are only requiring accounting officer to sign-off the return, as we acknowledge that it might not be possible to convene a full governing body sign-off meeting ahead of the return deadline. We continue to honour our commitment to simplify the IFMC with the sector, however, we appreciate it is not the right time to liaise with the sector on further improvements. Over the past months we have focused on improving the model and removing the errors while simplifying where possible.