The year end accounts for academies are now in full swing and should now be heading towards completion. However, the financial reporting process is not complete for 2023/24 until the Accounts Return for 2023/24 has been submitted to the Department of Education by 28 January 2025.
The main changes to the Accounts Return this year are:
Academy Trust Information
A new question has been added to the Academy Trust Information about which actuarial firms have provided the local government pension scheme valuation.
Statement of Financial Accounts (SoFA)
- Field removed - RGR011_PY – Prior year 16 to 19 allocations - This field is removed from Revenue Grants – DfE. This data was collected as a one-off in AR 2022 to 2023 so that we could collect the previous year figure.
- New field - STF061 – ‘Other Employee Benefits’ added to ‘Staff Costs’ table - This amount is included in ‘other employee benefits’ in the academies model accounts, note 10a as part of ‘Staff costs’.
Balance sheet funds and other disclosures
- New field - DBO061 - ‘Pension Surplus Deemed Irrecoverable’ added to Changes to the present value of the defined benefit obligation' section to report any increase to the obligation required to reflect the pension surplus deemed irrecoverable under FRS102
- New field - DBO061_PY - ‘Pension Surplus Deemed Irrecoverable Prior Year’ added to 'Changes to the present value of the defined benefit obligation' section to report any increase to the obligation required to reflect the pension surplus deemed irrecoverable under FRS102 for the previous year (September 2022 - August 2023)
- New field - FVA051 - ‘Pension Surplus Deemed Irrecoverable’ added to 'Changes to the fair value of assets' section. This field will be pre-populated with DBO061.
- New field - ROD101 added to ‘Reconciliation of deficit section’. This field will be pre-populated with DBO061.
- Updated field guidance for DBO070 - ‘Actuarial loss/(gain) - financial assumptions’ updated to remove reference to Pension Surplus Deemed Irrecoverable which should now be reported in DBO061- ‘Pension Surplus Deemed Irrecoverable’.
- Updated field description – SAP030 and SAP040 in the ‘Sensitivity Analysis’ table has been changed from using ‘Mortality rate’ to ‘Life expectancy rate’. The guidance also reflects this change of wording.
Benchmarking
- Guidance for BAE230 - 'Educational consultancy' updated to include high needs support for pupils.
The next steps
If you require any help or assistance in completing your Accounts Return, please contact your local UHY adviser on how they can support you with this process.
