Ref 98/19

Assignment of departments to academic cost centres

Executive summary

Purpose

1. This report gives details of how higher education institutions (HEIs) assigned departments to academic cost centres in returning their statistical data for 1997-98.

2. Institutions can use this information for comparison with management information statistics published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

Action required

3. No action is required.

Background

4. Information by academic cost centre now has a key role in determining our funding allocations for teaching and research, so it needs to be accurate and prepared on a consistent basis by institutions.

5. HEFCE 97/25 listed the academic cost centres to be used by HEIs in their statistical returns from 1997-98 onwards. It also asked institutions to provide details of how they assigned their departments to academic cost centres.

Mapping departments to academic cost centre

6. In general, a department is assigned to a single academic cost centre. Departments may be split across cost centres only if the institution can show a clear divergence between different sections of the department from one of the following five criteria:

1. Similar cost structures for teaching.
2. Similar cost structures for research.
3. Similar expenditure patterns for capital expenditure.
4. Academic coherence in terms of academic disciplines of staff.
5. Similar rates of funding for research grants and contracts.

7. Where a department spanned more than one cost centre, institutions are asked to indicate the proportion attributed to each.

8. A summary of the responses on how departments are mapped to academic cost centres is given in the tables.

9. Statistical information by cost centre is reported in the following HESA returns:

1. Finance Statistics Return (FSR) Table 4 (Research Grants and Contracts - Breakdown of Income by Cost Centre) and Table 6 (Expenditure by Activity).
2. Individual Student Record, and Non-Credit Bearing Course Record, where a number of fields identify the cost centres which provide academic input to the current year of the course/programme of study or the modules taken by students.
3. Individual Staff Record, where the principal cost centre of each academic member of staff is returned.
4. Aggregate Staff Return.

10. The information in this report relates to each institution's organisational structure at the time of return (January 1998). Changes may have taken place subsequently. In some cases, the proportions given are those estimated at January 1998 and may not necessarily be the same as those calculated for the whole academic year 1997-98.

11. We will probably ask institutions to update their assignment of departments to cost centres annually.

12. Display assignments by academic cost centre

13. Display assignments by institution

Enquiries

14. Enquiries should be referred to Keith Harris at the HEFCE (tel 0117 931 7395, e-mail k.harris@hefce.ac.uk)