University Financial Statements and Supporting Documents 2024–25

4. In preparing their annual report and accounts, institutions are required to comply with the Accounts Direction issued on 8 August 2025.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. The documents needed to complete your electronic return are set out in Annex A.

8. If your institution has recorded any significant deterioration in its financial position for the current Academic Year (2025-26) compared to that set out in the 2025 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.
9. 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 without delay.

10. If the movement on last year’s results or on the 2025 SPF forecast is significant, please provide details of the reason for the variance in the commentary.
11. 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.

12. Institutions already provide SFC with information on staffing efficiencies as part of the Strategic Plan Forecast return. We are now requesting that institutions confirm the following actual staffing efficiency figures for 2024-25 (and 2023-24):

• FTE staff reduction – vacancy management
• FTE staff reduction – voluntary severance
• FTE staff reduction – compulsory redundancy
• FTE staff reduction – total
• Voluntary severance costs (£000)
• Compulsory redundancy costs (£000)

13. Please contact Andrew Millar, Assistant Director, Finance (tel: 0131 313 6538; email: amillar@sfc.ac.uk) or Claire Taylor, Assistant Director, Finance (tel: 0131 313 6604; email: ctaylor@sfc.ac.uk) to discuss any aspect of this communication.

Ursula Lodge CPFA

Deputy Director Institutional Financial Health