A reminder on behalf of Jane Higham, Chief Financial Operator in regards to our continued need to limit our expenditure for the rest of the year.
The challenges we face
Like many organisations, we are facing some extremely challenging financial conditions, as a result of pressures from high general inflation and, in particular, soaring energy costs. On top of this, we are managing our response to the financial impact of our in-year issue with student retention.
To do this we have reset our budget for the year, reducing budgets for goods and services to compensate for our reduced income. It is essential that we stay within this budget, and last week we wrote to budget holders to update them on reductions in their areas.
New measures in place
With immediate effect, we need to significantly reduce any non-essential expenditure; across all activities and categories of spend, with expenditure only incurred where absolutely necessary. Specific areas where we can see room to make a big difference are:
- Consultants and Contractors: This resource is expensive and should only be used sparingly – our spend in this area is unsustainable at previous levels. Their use should be approved at Director level, and only where it would otherwise greatly reduce the student experience. A new approval process for this is in place for any essential requirements in this area.
- Travel: This constitutes a significant proportion of our spend. Effective immediately, bookings for in-person conference attendance in 2023 should not be made unless funded externally or with express, advance permission from a Director. Wherever it is possible to attend events online or achieve similar outcomes without travel, we should not be travelling.
Planning ahead
To help with our planning, it would be appreciated if you could notify our Procurement Team of any significant essential spend (£50k or greater) that needs to be incurred between now and year-end. Similarly, any queries relating to this can also be forwarded to the Procurement Team, who will be closely monitoring spend between now and the end of July.