University Financial Statements 2023-24
Purpose
- I am writing to ask you to provide copies of your audited 2023-24 financial statements and associated supporting information.
- All annual accounts and associated documents should be submitted to SFC by 31 December 2024. However, if any of your documents are ready prior to 31 December, earlier submission to SFC would be welcomed.
- Electronic copies of the annual accounts and supporting documents should be emailed to: isg-returns@sfc.ac.uk.
2023-24 Financial statements
- In preparing their annual report and accounts, institutions are required to comply with the Accounts Direction issued on 16 August 2024.
- The annual accounts review is an established part of SFC’s financial health monitoring framework. As with previous years returns, SFC will be using the Finance Statistics Return (FSR) submitted to HESA as the basis for our annual accounts review. We will keep the appropriateness of using the HESA information under review.
- As last year, there is no requirement to send us a full set of subsidiary accounts. However, we reserve the right to ask for individual subsidiary accounts if required.
- The documents needed to complete your electronic return are set out in Annex A.
Update on operating position
- If your institution has recorded any significant deterioration in its financial position for the current Academic Year (2024-25) compared to that set out in the 2024 Strategic Plan Forecast, please inform the relevant Senior Financial Analyst within the Finance Directorate as soon as possible and provide a full commentary on the reasons for the deterioration. A list of the Senior Analysts and their portfolios can be found on our website.
- If any covenants relating to your institution’s borrowing have been, or are likely to be, breached within the next 12 months, please advise the relevant Senior Financial Analyst as soon as possible.
Commentary to explain variances
- If the movement on last year’s results or on the 2024 SPF forecast is significant, please provide details of the reason for the variance in the commentary.
- Explanations should be genuinely insightful, giving clarity about the cause of a variance. This should reduce the number of queries arising from our review of the spreadsheet and accounts.
Further information
- Please contact Andrew Millar, Assistant Director, Finance (tel: 0131 313 6538; email: amillar@sfc.ac.uk) or Claire Taylor, Senior Financial Analyst, Finance (tel: 0131 313 6604; email: ctaylor@sfc.ac.uk) to discuss any aspect of this communication.
Ursula Lodge CPFA
Deputy Director Institutional Sustainability & Capital
Annex A – Financial Statements checklist
Please ensure that all the documents referred to below are submitted to SFC in the format indicated and no later than 31 December 2024.
| No. | Item | Format |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A signed copy of the audited financial statements | |
| 2 | Annual audit report and any management letter(s) from external auditor | |
| 3 | Paper to finance committee which accompanied the financial statements | |
| 4 | Internal auditor’s annual report | |
| 5 | Audit Committee annual report | |
| 6 | Commentary to explain variances |
SFC Strategic Plan 2022-27
Building a connected, agile, sustainable tertiary education and research system for Scotland.