| 5 December 2005 |  |
| To | Heads of HEFCE-funded higher education institutions Heads of universities in Northern Ireland |
| Direct Line | 0117 931 7300 |
| Direct Fax | 0117 931 7203 |
Circular letter number 32/2005
For further information contact Joe Clark, tel 0117 931 7292, e-mail hesa_heses_stats@hefce.ac.uk
Dear Vice-Chancellor or Principal
Assignment of departments to academic cost centres: 2005-06
1. This letter requests an update of your institution's assignment of departments to academic cost centres, to be returned by Wednesday 11 January 2006. Instructions on how to obtain and submit the template for returning your assignments of departments to academic cost centres are at Annex A.
2. Information on departmental expenditure, together with student and staff load grouped by cost centre, has a prominent role in determining our funding allocations for teaching and research. We therefore need to ensure that this information provides a reasonable and accurate picture of the activities of each institution, and that it has been prepared on a consistent basis by all institutions.
3. We therefore request an update of your assignment of departments to academic cost centres. The update should reflect the cost centre assignments that will be used for 2005-06 data returns. We last requested this information in HEFCE Circular letter 02/02 'Assigning departments to academic cost centres: 2001-02' and published updated guidance in HEFCE Circular letter 25/2003 'Assigning departments to academic cost centres: 2003-04'.
4. Annex B contains guidance for determining the academic cost centre(s) for a department, and a list of valid academic cost centres is at Annex C. The list of valid cost centres has changed since we last requested this information, following the review of the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) finance record in 2004. Details of the simplification are at Annex C.
5. To assist you in providing the update we have produced a breakdown by institution of 2003-04 finance, student and staff data by academic cost centre. Instructions on how to obtain this breakdown are at Annex A. Institutions should use these statistics in considering their assignment of departments to academic cost centres for 2005-06.
6. The cost centres define the lowest level at which information on staff, students, and finances returned to HESA can be matched. The method which institutions choose to assign their own organisational structure to these cost centres will therefore have implications for all three HESA returns.
7. Higher Education Students Early Statistics Survey 2005-06 (HESES05) and 2005-06 HESA finance, student and staff returns should be based on this assignment of departments to academic cost centres.
8. The assignment of departments to academic cost centres will reflect your own decisions. Consequently the supply of this information to us should not be regarded as an implicit approval of the assignments. As part of our audit process we will compare academic cost centre data returned on your 2005-06 HESA student return with academic cost centre sector norms for subjects. Details of the equivalent comparison methods we expect to use for 2004-05 are at Annex D of '2004-05 statistics derived from HESA data: guide to HEFCE web facility' (HEFCE 2005/32). If, as a result of these or any other investigations, we find that assignment of departments to academic cost centres is not consistent with the guidance in Annex B, we will request amendments to the assignments and, where appropriate, amendments to HESES05 and 2005-06 HESA data.
9. In 2006 we plan to publish all institutions' 2005-06 assignment of departments to academic cost centres.
Yours sincerely
Sir Howard Newby
Chief Executive
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