Some schools will have noticed a change to the accounting treatment of the above at the year-end. Previously this issue was dealt with outside individual schools cost centres, and schools were only affected at the point of a debt being written-off.
Some issues have arisen where schools were unaware of their level of debt outstanding and therefore the change in treatment is designed to address this problem.
For those schools affected, a charge will have appeared against code 149500 (Bad debt W/O A/C) in the 2015-2016 accounts and this represents the total debt outstanding that is more than 2 years old. This has then been credited back to the school in the 2016-2017 accounts so that the school is no worse off overall but provides a cautious approach (in line with the 'prudence' accounting concept) to the risk of the debt remaining uncollected. Information on which debts account for the charge can be found by viewing the attached spreadsheet on the journal transfer.
It is the intention to provide schools with periodic updates on the level of debt outstanding by publishing further updates on the SchoolsNet site in the same format as the Schools aged debt report - November 2017.
If you have any queries regarding a specific debt email: accounts.receivable@derbyshire.gov.uk
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