Wellington House 133-155 Waterloo Road London SE1 8UG 13 November 2018 T: 020 3747 0000 E: nhsi.enquiries@nhs.net W: improvement.nhs.uk To: All NHS trust and NHS foundation trust finance directors and finance teams Dear Colleague Accounts and reporting timetable 2018/19 We have worked with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England to develop the accounts timetable for 2018/19 and we are pleased to publish this. The key submissions are on similar dates to 2017/18, but adjustments have been made to allow for the timing of Easter and bank holidays to preserve the number of working days and/or calendar days between key dates as much as possible. As in 2017/18, there will also be a key data return at months 9 and 12: this will allow us to meet our deadlines for reporting to the Department of Health and Social Care. At month 12 the key data return will be used to inform the calculation of the indicative Provider Sustainability Fund (PSF) allocations, which will be communicated back to providers before the submission of draft accounts. We ll communicate more details about this process nearer the time. The annex to this letter sets out the detailed reporting timetable for 2018/19. If there are any changes required to this timetable we will communicate these to you as soon as possible and updates will also be posted at https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/financial-reporting/. We ve added an extra item to the timetable for this year: for each agreement of balances return, we will produce and issue a provider-to-provider mismatch report 2-3 working days before we issue the wider mismatch report produced by DHSC. The DHSC mismatch report will still contain all mismatches; this is intended to give you extra time to start looking at provider mismatches before the DHSC report is available. NHS trusts should also note that the Department and NHS Improvement are now specifying a date by which an NHS trust must make its annual report and accounts available on its website: this is 31 July. There is no change for an NHS foundation trust, where the annual report and accounts must be available on its website promptly after it is laid before Parliament. Development of monitoring and reporting form Thank you for your and your teams cooperation through the 2017/18 financial reporting and year end process. You have told us you appreciated that the month 12 form was very similar to the form used at month 9. We know that a small number of foundation trusts struggled NHS Improvement is the operational name for the organisation that brings together Monitor, NHS Trust Development Authority, Patient Safety, the National Reporting and Learning System, the Advancing Change team and the Intensive Support Teams.
with the monitoring and accounting reporting tabs being joined in one form, but more providers told us that they appreciated only having one version of financial reporting. We hope that all providers have now been able to incorporate the single form approach into their closedown processes. For 2018/19 there are no fundamental changes planned for the reporting form. You are already working with the in-year monitoring Provider Finance Return (PFR) form. At month 9 we will add the Trust Accounts Consolidation (TAC) tabs and will provide a full listing of everything that has changed since month 12 last year. The key changes will be reflecting the impact of IFRS 9 and IFRS 15. Like last year, we ll also make a standalone TAC form available for reference in advance of month 9 to aid your preparations. This is included in the attached timetable. Impact of new accounting standards Over the past two years we have been corresponding with providers on the new accounting standards taking effect from 2018/19: IFRS 9 on financial instruments and IFRS 15 on revenue from contracts with customers. The DHSC Group Accounting Manual explains how these standards should be applied by DHSC group bodies, with further guidance in the consultation documents for the manual. The month 9 PFR form will be updated to reflect disclosure changes resulting from the standards, as well as providing the necessary rows to reflect the impact of initial adoption of the standards. HM Treasury has determined that the impact of initial adoption of the standards will be reflected in reserves as at 1 April 2018. Please ensure that you have completed your work to implement the new standards as much as possible to enable these to be reflected in your month 9 reporting. We expect that local auditors will want to review this as part of their interim audit visits at providers in early. Please find attached to this letter: Annex 1: Full accounts and reporting timetable for 2018/19 Annex 2: Summarised timetable Thank you for your continued co-operation in providing financial information to us which enables us to meet our obligations. Yours sincerely Elizabeth O Mahony Chief Financial Officer 2
Annex 1: Full accounts and reporting timetable for 2018/19 Organisations should note the following definitions: Receivable organisation - this is the organisation sending the invoice/is carrying the trade receivable/is receiving the income i.e. the supplier or provider Payable organisation this is the organisation receiving the invoice/carrying the trade payable/recording expenditure i.e. the purchaser or commissioner. We have colour-coded rows in this table as follows: White row Yellow row Blue row Green row Red row Grey row Agreement of balances process Monthly monitoring submission Key data submission TAC / accounts / agreement of balances submission to NHS Improvement Other process Month 9 and month 12 form release by NHS Improvement Friday 7 th December Monday 17 th December 2018 Thursday 20 th Friday 21 st December 2018 Monday 31 st December 2018 Friday 4 th Monday 7 th Wednesday 9 th NHS Improvement issues dummy month 9 TAC standalone file To help your preparations for month 9 we will issue a dummy standalone file containing the Trust Accounts Consolidation (TAC) schedules in advance of the full PFR form later in December. This is for information only and cannot be submitted. Submission of month 8 monitoring return to NHS Improvement Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Any financial commentary or other documents that accompany the template should be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox with activity type In Year Returns, template type Finance Commentary and period M08. NHS Improvement issues month 9 PFR form (including TAC schedules) Month 9 forms will be issued to providers together with completion instructions. Due to the volume of data being processed, your individual trust s form could be issued on either day. The form will be issued via the Portal inbox and accompanied by an email from Provider Accounts (Provider.Accounts@improvement.nhs.uk). Final date for e-mailing invoices dated up to 31 st December 2018. These invoices relate to activity and services up to and including November and can include December activity and services. for Receivable organisations to e-mail Payable organisations a receivables statement detailing outstanding invoices as at 31 st December 2018. Please note: Only one statement must be sent to each Payable organisation A statement must be sent to each Payable organisation even if the balance is under 100,000 but need not be sent if the balance is less than 2,500. Agreement is not required where the total balance is below 100,000 Refer to DH agreement of balances guidance 1 for further details If a receivables statement has not been received the Payable organisation is to inform the Receivable organisation. In such cases, the Receivable organisation must email a statement immediately. 1 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-department-of-health-agreement-of-balances 3
Tuesday 15 th Wednesday 16 th Thursday 17 th Friday 18 th Tuesday 22 nd Wednesday 23 rd Friday 25 th Wednesday 30 th Final date for agreement of outstanding Receivables/Payables dated up to 31st December 2018 and above 100,000. Submission of month 9 key data return to NHS Improvement Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Please note Key Data submissions are to allow early view of high level figures. We would not expect any material changes to these key figures unless this has been agreed with your NHS improvement regional contact first. Final date for Receivable organisations to e-mail Payable organisations an income statement detailing income received to 31 st December 2018. The statement will include income that has been invoiced and income received without an invoice. Only one statement must be sent to each Payable organisation. A statement must be sent to each Payable organisation even if the balance is under 100,000 but need not be sent if the balance is less than 10,000. Agreement is not required where the total balance is below 100,000. If an income statement has not been received, the Payable organisation is to inform the Receivable organisation. In such cases, the Receivable organisation must email a statement immediately. NHS providers submit month 9 Provider Finance Return (PFR) to NHS Improvement (incorporating Trust Accounts Consolidation (TAC) schedules), with first submission of month 9 receivables and payables AoB data These TACs should be prepared using the agreed receivables/payables position, but the provider s own information on income and expenditure. This submission will be used for consolidating the TACs, and for receivables and payables AoB information. The income and expenditure columns in the WGA tabs (TAC60-TAC64) will not be used in this submission, but the provider should ensure there are no validation errors in the form 2. The month 9 TAC Completion Instructions document will give further guidance about this form. Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Please ensure that Month 9 main submission is selected on the cover of the PFR file before uploading. Any financial commentary or other documents that accompany the template should be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox with activity type In Year Returns, template type Finance Commentary and period M09. NEW: NHS Improvement issues provider to provider mismatch reports (receivables and payables only) This report will give earlier sight of provider to provider mismatches in advance of DHSC group mismatch reports being issued. NHS Improvement distributes DHSC group mismatch schedules to NHS providers (receivables and payables only) 2 The income and expenditure columns on the WGA sheets (TAC60-TAC64) are not used by NHS Improvement in this first submission. However the WGA balances columns on TAC60-TAC64 and all the counterparty columns on the accounts tabs must be properly completed. It is therefore a matter for the trust whether the income and expenditure columns on TAC60-TAC64 are completed with the provider s own information, or balancing figures are entered to clear the I&E WGA validations: the counterparty columns on the main TAC tabs must be fully completed. The month 9 TAC completion instructions will give guidance on which specific notes and tables in the accounts tabs can be omitted. 4
Expected deadline early Monday 4 th Wednesday 6 th Friday 8 th Wednesday 13 th Friday 15 th Monday 25 th Wednesday 27 th Monday 4 th Submit NHS Pensions requests for senior managers remuneration ( Greenbury ) Please note that all requests for disclosure information must be received by NHS Pensions between these dates to enable the necessary information to be provided in time for the submission of draft accounts. NHS Pensions is unable to guarantee that requests or queries received after the deadline (expected to be in early February) will be dealt with by 1 st April. NHS BSA will formally publish these arrangements in December. Final date for agreement of income and expenditure above 100,000 in respect of invoices dated up to 31 December 2018 NHS providers submit first submission of month 9 income and expenditure AoB to NHS Improvement This submission is made by resubmitting the month 9 PFR file. You should submit the whole form, but only the WGA information will be utilised from this submission (a first submission of income and expenditure). The accounts and in-year monitoring information will not be used and need not be updated. Validation errors can be ignored in this submission, except for the specific agreement of balances validations referred to on the Cover sheet of the form. Please note that a submission is required from all providers, even if no AoB data has changed. Receivables and payables AoB information can also be included but this is not a formal receivables and payables resubmission. Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Please ensure that Agreement of balances resubmission is selected on the cover of the PFR file before uploading. NEW: NHS Improvement issues provider to provider mismatch reports This report will give earlier sight of provider to provider mismatches in advance of DHSC group mismatch reports being issued. NHS Improvement distributes DHSC group mismatch schedules to NHS providers Submission of month 10 monitoring return to NHS Improvement Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Any financial commentary or other documents that accompany the template should be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox with activity type In Year Returns, template type Finance Commentary and period M10. NHS providers submit second submission of month 9 income/expenditure and receivables/payables AoB to NHS Improvement This submission is made by resubmitting the month 9 PFR file. You should submit the whole form, but only the WGA information will be utilised from this submission. The accounts and in-year monitoring information will not be used and need not be updated. Validation errors can be ignored in this submission, except for the specific agreement of balances validations referred to on the Cover sheet of the form. Please note that a submission is required from all providers, even if no AoB data has changed. Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Please ensure that Agreement of balances resubmission is selected on the cover of the PFR file before uploading. NEW: NHS Improvement issues provider to provider mismatch reports This report will give earlier sight of provider to provider mismatches in advance of DHSC group mismatch reports being issued. NHS Improvement distributes DHSC group mismatch schedules to NHS providers Providers should use these reports to manage the resolution of any remaining variances before the year end agreement of balances process. 5
Friday 8 th March Friday 15 th Thursday 21 st Friday 22 nd Friday 22 nd Wednesday 27 th Thursday 28 th March Monday 1 st April Friday 5 th April Friday 5 th April Friday 5 th April Friday 12 th April NHS Improvement issues dummy month 12 TAC standalone file To help your preparations for year end we will issue a dummy standalone file containing the Trust Accounts Consolidation (TAC) schedules in advance of the full PFR form later in March. This is for information only and cannot be submitted. Submission of month 11 monitoring return to NHS Improvement Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Any financial commentary or other documents that accompany the template should be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox with activity type In Year Returns, template type Finance Commentary and period M11. Final date for sending March dated invoices (email where possible). These invoices relate to activity and services up to and including February and should include estimates for March activity and services where possible. Please note statements are not to be sent until 27 th. Final date for despatch of payments to DHSC group bodies for 2018/19. This means that there should be no payments made after 22 nd without prior agreement. NHS Improvement issues month 12 PFR form (including TAC schedules) Month 12 forms will be issued to providers together with completion instructions. The form will be issued via the Portal inbox and accompanied by an email from Provider Accounts (Provider.Accounts@improvement.nhs.uk). for Receivable organisations to e-mail Payable organisations a receivables statement detailing outstanding invoices dated and invoiced by 21 st. Payments received up to and including 22 nd must also be included. Please note: Only one statement must be sent to each Payable organisation A statement must be sent to each Payable organisation even if the balance is under 100,000 but need not be sent if the balance is less than 2,500. Agreement is not required where the total balance is below 100,000. If a receivables statement has not been received the Payable organisation is to inform the Receivable organisation. In such cases, the Receivable organisation must email a statement immediately. Final date for agreement of outstanding Receivables/Payables dated up to 21 st March and above 100,000. Final date for Receivables organisations to email a statement of Accruals to the Payable organisations, listing all 2018/19 liabilities not invoiced by 21 st. Final date for Receivable organisations to e-mail Payable organisations an income statement detailing income received to 21 st. The statement will include income that has been invoiced and income received without an invoice e.g. Grants, R&D payments etc. Only one statement must be sent to each Payable organisation. An income statement must be sent to each Payable organisation for balances over 2m and agreement reached. Receivable organisations may issue statements below this level if they wish. Deadline for agreement of income/expenditure above 2m balance. Complete discussions regarding accruals for inclusion in 2018/19 accounts. 6
Monday 15 th April Wednesday 24 th April Friday 26 th April Tuesday 30 th April Wednesday 8 th May Friday 10 th May Tuesday 14 th May Submission of month 12 key data return to NHS Improvement Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Please note Key Data submissions are to allow early view of high level figures. We would not expect any material changes to these key figures unless this has been agreed with your NHS improvement regional contact first. NHS providers submit month 12 PFR form (including unaudited TACs) and draft accounts to NHS Improvement This submission is of: Month 12 PFR form (including unaudited TACs) Draft accounts The TACs will include income/expenditure and receivables/payables WGA data. PFR form uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal (outbox). Please ensure that Draft accounts is selected on the cover of the PFR file before uploading. There should be no validation errors in this submission. Draft accounts uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox and submitted as: Financial year: FY2018-19 Activity: In Year Returns Template Type: Accounts submissions Period: M12 Any financial commentary that accompanies the template should be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox with activity type In Year Returns, template type Finance Commentary and period M12. NEW: NHS Improvement issues provider to provider mismatch reports This report will give earlier sight of provider to provider mismatches in advance of DHSC group mismatch reports being issued. NHS Improvement distributes DHSC group mismatch schedules to NHS providers NHS providers re-submit TACs to provide updated agreement of balances information to NHS Improvement This submission is made by resubmitting the month 12 PFR file. You should submit the whole form, but only the WGA information will be utilised from this submission. The accounts and in-year monitoring information will not be used and need not be updated. Validation errors can be ignored in this submission, except for the specific agreement of balances validations referred to on the Cover sheet of the form. Please note that a submission is required from all providers, even if no AoB data has changed. Template to be uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox. Please ensure that Agreement of balances resubmission is selected on the cover of the PFR file before uploading. Any changes to the accounts must be agreed with your auditors and should form part of the audited submission of the accounts and PFR form on 29 th May. NEW: NHS Improvement issues provider to provider mismatch reports This report will give earlier sight of provider to provider mismatches in advance of DHSC group mismatch reports being issued. NHS Improvement distributes DHSC group mismatch schedules to NHS providers 7
Wednesday 29 th May NHS providers submit month 12 PFR form (including audited TACs) and audited accounts to NHS Improvement Electronic (Portal) Electronic (Portal) scan (pdf) of a signed document Hard copy in the post 1 Audited accounts (Any reasonable file type) 2 Audited accounts: signed Statement of Financial Position (balance sheet) 3 Audited accounts: signed Statement of Accounting / Accountable Officer s Responsibilities (included in (1) ) 4 Audited TAC schedules (submission of PFR form) 5 Audited TAC schedules: Print of the Confirmations tab and signed at the bottom by the Chief Executive as confirmation that the final audited TAC schedules have been submitted. Please ensure answer to question 3 has been updated. 6 Full final text of audited annual report (this does not need to have final formatting for printing, but should be the final text) 7 Annual report: signed pages For FTs: see annex 1 to chapter 1 of the FT ARM For NHS trusts: see DHSC GAM paragraphs 3.7 and 3.8) (No need to upload separately if the file in (6) is a pdf containing scanned signatures) 8 Auditor ISA 260 report 9 Original signed audit report (audit opinion) on the accounts 10 Original signed chief executive and finance director certificate on the summarisation schedules (TAC schedules) Will be available here 11 Auditor report on the summarisation schedules (TAC schedules) NHS foundation trusts: See row 12 below for extra hard copy item The TACs will include income/expenditure and receivables/payables WGA data. This row is continued overleaf. 8
PFR form uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal (outbox). Please ensure that Audited accounts is selected on the cover of the PFR file before uploading. There should be no validation errors in this submission. All other electronic submissions in table above uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox and submitted as: Financial year: FY2018-19 Activity: In Year Returns Template Type: Accounts submissions Period: M12 Hard copy submissions in table above posted on Wednesday 29 th May to: Provider Accounts, NHS Improvement, Wellington House, 133-155 Waterloo Road, London, SE1 8UG Please clearly write your organisation s MARS ID (found on the Cover sheet of the PFR form) on the envelope of the package. NHS Improvement requires hard copy documents to assess the consistency of summarisation schedules with accounts. Wednesday 29 th May (5pm) FOR NHS FOUNDATION TRUSTS ONLY: NHS foundation trusts submit quality report assurance documents to NHS Improvement 12 NHS foundation trusts only: original signed limited assurance audit opinion on quality report 13 NHS foundation trusts only: auditor long form governors report on quality report assurance Electronic (Portal) Electronic (Portal) scan (pdf) of a signed document Hard copy in the post Electronic submissions in table above uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox and submitted as: Same instructions as accounts row above Hard copy submission in table above posted on Wednesday 29 th May to: Same address as accounts row above You may wish to include this with the accounts submissions above. Please clearly write your organisation s MARS ID (found on the Cover sheet of the PFR form) on the envelope of the package. 9
Friday 21 st June Tuesday 25 th June Monday 24 th June, noon NHS foundation trusts: Friday 19 th July NHS trusts: Wednesday 31 st July Wednesday 31 st July FOR NHS FOUNDATION TRUSTS ONLY Parliament step 1: Preparation for laying before Parliament You must check that the format of your annual report and accounts is acceptable before printing the final copies of the report. The format should be checked with the DHSC Parliamentary Office to ensure it can be laid before Parliament. Refer to the DHSC GAM for full details. FOR NHS FOUNDATION TRUSTS ONLY Parliament step 2: NHS foundation trusts submit accounts to DHSC Parliamentary Office to be laid before Parliament (refer to DHSC GAM for detailed guidance around this process). Hard copies must arrive at the Parliamentary Clerk s office for lying before parliament no later than this date. NHS foundation trusts should pay careful attention to the format published alongside in the DHSC GAM and note the requirement to send the draft document to the Parliamentary Clerk for approval prior to printing (see supplement to DHSC GAM for more details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-ofhealth-guidance-on-laying-accounts-in-parliament ). This should be the full annual report and full statutory accounts (as one document) Four hard copies should be posted to the Parliamentary Clerk s office to arrive on or before Tuesday 25 th June. PDF of the annual report and accounts document to be sent to MB-SI@dh.gsi.gov.uk. Postal address: The Parliamentary Clerk, Department of Health and Social Care, Parliamentary Unit, 8 th Floor, 39 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0EU Please clearly state your organisation name (not MARS ID) on the package label. Once laid before Parliament the NHS foundation trust must make the annual report and accounts available on its website. FOR ALL NHS PROVIDERS NHS providers reply to NHS Improvement s letter regarding events after the reporting date. We expect to issue this letter to NHS providers on 14 th June. FOR ALL NHS PROVIDERS: NHS providers submit final full annual report including full statutory accounts to NHS Improvement This should be a single PDF document containing both the annual report (including quality report and quality report limited assurance opinion for NHS foundation trusts) and full statutory accounts including audit report (opinion). Uploaded to the NHS Improvement Portal outbox: Financial year: FY2018-19 Activity: In Year Returns Template Type: Accounts submissions Period: M12 FOR NHS TRUSTS ONLY: NHS trusts to publish Annual Report and Accounts Each NHS trust should make its 2018/19 annual report and accounts available on its website. As guided by the DHSC GAM, an NHS trust may choose to publish a performance report overview and supplementary material rather than the full annual report and accounts. In either case, NHS Improvement will consider NHS trusts accounts data to be in the public domain after 31 July. 10
Annex 2: Summarised timetable for 2018/19 Collection period Information collected NHS Improvement issues forms via portals ) Submission deadline for providers (by noon unless otherwise stated) Month 8 PFR form: monthly monitoring Monday 3 rd December 2018 Monday 17 th December 2018 Month 9: Key Data Key data Thursday 3 rd Wednesday 16 th Month 9: Main submission Month 9: AoB submission Month 9: AoB resubmission PFR form: TAC schedules and monthly monitoring PFR form: TAC schedules (WGA sheets updated only) PFR form: TAC schedules (WGA sheets updated only) Thursday 20 th Friday 21 st December 2018 Wednesday 23 rd n/a Wednesday 6 th n/a Monday 25 th Month 10 PFR form: monthly monitoring Tuesday 5 th - Friday 15 th Month 11 PFR form: monthly monitoring Monday 4 th Friday 15 th Month 12: Key Data Key data Monday 1 st April Monday 15 th April Month 12: Draft Accounts Month 12: AoB resubmission Month 12: Final Accounts PFR form: TAC schedules and monthly monitoring PFR form: TAC schedules (WGA sheets updated only) PFR form: TAC schedules and monthly monitoring Friday 22 nd Wednesday 24 th April n/a Wednesday 8 th May n/a Wednesday 29 th May 11