This contract forms a critical part of the Department's strategy to continue to improve its financial reporting relating to academy trusts. We are seeking a supplier to work closely with us as we aim to deliver the academies Sector Annual Report and Accounts (SARA) more quickly and without any audit qualifications. We also want to enhance our approach to financial reporting to deliver improvements that increase value and reduce burdens.
There are two key aspects of this contract:
Accountancy services to support the production of the SARA for the academies sector in England. This involves making validations against and accounting adjustments of financial and non-financial data collected from each Academy Trust before consolidation for the SARA.
Automating the collection of the data from each Academy Trust to DfE. This involves end-to-end technology transformation.
DfE is seeking to bring the majority of the services of this contract in-house over the course of the three-year term