We recently updated you on the need to limit our non-pay spend to essential spend only for the foreseeable future and it remains imperative that spend is limited in this way. I am writing to outline additional processes that we are now putting in place before non-pay spend orders with a value of £5,000 or above can be authorised.
You are reminded that all spend should be placed using purchase orders in advance of its being incurred, in line with our No PO, No pay policy.
With effect from 1 July 2023 every new or amended purchase order and requisition above £5k will be subject to a further level of review, including those related to capital spend. This will be conducted by the Non-Pay approval group, which will meet weekly, usually on Tuesdays. The group will scrutinise all orders to ensure that they are essential only in nature. In order for the Panel to make their assessment they will require that Business Justification forms are completed in sufficient detail. Purchase Orders without sufficient explanation will remain parked until this is available.
As currently, all orders over £5k will be initially checked by the Finance Business Partnering team and the capital budgets team to determine budget availability. To be considered at the weekly meeting, orders will need to be received by the Business Partners by 12.30pm each Monday. Once they have completed their checks they will ‘park’ the order and it will then proceed to the group for review. Only once approved by the group will the order be approved in UBW. Any orders approved by the Group will be moved from ‘parked’ to ‘approved’ status in UBW and can proceed to be placed.
This applies across all of Kent’s activity, but exemptions to this process will be made for the following categories of spend which will proceed on the normal approval route:
• Spend directly funded by research and innovation grants
• Spend associated with trading activity where essential to generate income (food orders for catering outlets, for example)
• Utilities spend
We will be keeping the level of spend outside of the ordering system under review in order to ensure that the process isn’t circumvented.
If you do have any questions then in the first instance please approach the Business Partnering team.