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Manage Budgets

1. Budget planning

As part of the annual planning exercise, divisions and services are required to provide high-level budget projections which are used by the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee (PRAC) to provide guidance on budget targets. This exercise is carried out to ensure that actions contained within the academic and service plans are fully costed and that there is agreement on the likely budgetary outcome for the University before the detailed budgeting starts i.e. it provides a guide to what is affordable. Detailed guidance is sent out to Divisional Financial Controllers in October each year, together with standard templates, which need to be completed and submitted in January.

Standard Inflation Factors for Planning (21kb) provides information on inflation for budgeting purposes.

Projections cover a four-year period i.e. current year plus three years forward.

The plans and budget projections are sent to PRAC for initial consideration in February. Before this, the plans for the services are sent to the Budget Sub-Committee, where service targets are recommended to PRAC for the coming year. These targets form the basis of the 123 infrastructure charges, the mechanism by which the service costs are recharged to the divisions and to Central Costs & Adjustments. It is possible that PRAC might require the divisions and services to do some further work after this February meeting.

The HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) grant letter is received in early March after which the internal resource allocation model (JRAM) is run. This is the mechanism by which the University allocates the funding and fees it receives to individual departments.

The budget projections are updated with the allocation from the JRAM and the 123 infrastructure charge model and taken back to PRAC during March, where budget targets for the following year are set.

2. Budget preparation

In accordance with the Financial Regulations, each department is required to complete the budget template, and submit it to the parent division/service as per the divisional timetable. The Budget Briefing 2012/13 (1,122kb) and Budgeting for 2012/13 Guidance Notes (1,389kb) provide a useful overview. During May and June these are reviewed and discussed with departments to ensure they are within the overall budgetary target. The budget is approved by PRAC and then by Council during June. A Budget Book is generated by the Head of Financial Planning & Analysis in preparation for sign off by the end of June.

3. Budget upload

During July all departmental budgets are uploaded onto Oracle Financials by the Divisional Financial Controllers.

4. Budget reconciliation

Once budgets have been loaded onto Oracle Financials there is a final check by the Financial Reporting Team to ensure that the figures match those in the Budget Book.

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