Charities & Not-for-Profit Plus Blog
The General Annual Grant (GAG) - clawback
Date: Monday 8th August, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
The main funding received by an academy is usually through the General Annual Grant (GAG). The GAG cannot generally be used ‘for the advancement of education’, as per an academy’s governing document, but instead it comes with specific restrictions on its use, only allowing expense on recurrent expenditure of the academy. This generally includes expenditure on the establishment, conduct, administration and maintenance, but not most items of capital expenditure (specifically not those which would...
One-to-one tuition funding and clawback for academies
Date: Wednesday 3rd August, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
Academies must use their allocation of one to one funding (identified through the Standards fund) by the 31 August. Any unclaimed one to one tuition funding will be subject to claw-back by the Department for Education. It has been noted that many Academies are yet to claim these funds. Funds can be claimed by Academies if one to one tuition has taken place and is done by updating the One to One Tuition website. This action is essential if for...
Information for academies – Devolved Formula Capital (DFC)
Date: Monday 1st August, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
In December the Secretary of State announced that Academies would receive Devolved Formula Capital (DFC) on the same basis as local authority maintained schools. Following from this, The Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) have written to all Academies that opened on or before 1 April 2011 to inform them about their DFC funding allocation for the financial year 1 April 2011 – 31 March 2011. They would like to clarify that the Special Education Needs (SEN) rate for DFC is applied to pupils attending...
Annual survey - school capacity data collection
Date: Friday 29th July, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
The Secretary of State requires that local authorities complete an annual survey of school capacity information. The survey includes information on individual schools – capacity, published admission numbers and numbers on roll. Aggregate pupil forecasts are also provided by local authorities at a local or district level. Forecasts are arranged by age group and are 5 years for primary aged pupils and 7 years for secondary aged pupils. As part of the survey, local authorities are also asked to provide information...
Information for academies and schools with 6th forms
Date: Monday 25th July, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
Consultation on the revised Schools Admissions Code and School Admissions Appeals Code had begun by the Department for Education. The draft codes are considerably leaner than the current editions and are structured more clearly with simpler language. The changes in the codes are expected to create a system with national parameters that remains locally determined, is easier to understand/navigate, and maintains safeguards to ensure equal treatment. The consultation is in progress and will finish on 19th August.
16-19 Bursary fund and academy financial returns to the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA)
Date: Thursday 21st July, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
The government has announced a new £180 million bursary scheme to help the most vulnerable 16-19 years olds continue in full-time education. From the 2011/12 academic year, a new 16-19 bursary fund is to be introduced, allocated to further education colleges, sixth form colleges, academies, schools with sixth forms and training providers across the country. A number of support materials have been made available by the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) for anyone seeking further details on...
Rise in number of schools applying for academy status
Date: Wednesday 20th July, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
The number of academies now open in the UK has risen to more than 20% of the number of secondary schools. In the last month alone 110 schools applied to become academies, and 97 had their applications completed. In fact overall there have been 1353 applications from schools to change their status since June 2010, meaning that now over a third of all secondary schools are either academies, or are in the process of becoming one. This rise can...
HMRC Charity Statistics
Date: Wednesday 20th July, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
According to HMRC the charitable tax reliefs provided by them increased from £3.22bn in the tax year 2009/10 to £3.34bn in 2010/11. This was made up of £2.56bn (09/10 £2.48bn) of reliefs to charities and £0.78bn (09/10 £0.74) of reliefs to individuals. The reliefs to charities is made up of £1.1bn (09/10 £1.03bn) tax repayments which includes gift aid, £1.16bn (09/10 £1.14bn) in business rates relief payments, VAT £0.2bn (09/10 £0.2bn), Study Duty Land Tax ...
Action for Academies – VAT and Academies
Date: Tuesday 19th July, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
From September 2011, a new scheme will be put in place (subject to the passage of legislation) that allows Academies to recover non-business VAT directly from HMRC. An Academy should already be registered for VAT with HMRC if it has a vatable turnover over £73,000 a year (the current HMRC threshold). If an Academy has taxable turnover below the threshold, it can still register on order to reclaim its non-business VAT under the new system. For those academies...
Public Benefit Reporting
Date: Friday 8th July, 2011 | Author: Wendy Bambrick
Public benefit reporting is about explaining: * What a charity’s aims are and how it carries them out * Who it seeks to benefit * How people are benefitted. On 4 July the Charity Commission reported on independent research commissioned by them. The research which was undertaken by Sheffield Hallam University assessed how well registered charities are dealing with the requirement, introduced in 2008, to report on public benefit in there Trustees Annual Report. The research has found that...
