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Staff record 2014/15

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Coding activities and cost centres

Version 1.1 Produced 2015-02-26

Contents: What are activities and cost centres? | Why are activities and cost centres important? | Collection of cost centre data | Allocating cost centres | Proportion in cost centre

What are activities and cost centres?Back to top

Each contract must have at least one activity and an associated cost centre and a proportion: Activity.ACTSOC/Activity.CCENTRE/Activity.CCPROP. The activity associated with a contract defines the role of the staff member and the cost centre indicates where that activity takes place within the higher education provider (HEP).

A maximum of six occurrences of Contract.Activity is permitted for members of staff where any of the following criteria is met:

  • Contract.LEVELS is coded:
    • A0 'Vice-Chancellor/Principal/Head of Institution'
    • B1 'UCEA level 2A'
    • B2 'UCEA level 2B'
    • C1 'UCEA level 3A'
    • C2 'UCEA level 3B'
    • D1 'UCEA level 3/4A1'
    • D2 'UCEA level 3/4A2'
    OR
  • Contract.ACEMPFUN is coded 4 'Not an academic contract'
  • OR
  • All instances of Activity.ACTSOC are in the SOC2010 Major Groups 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9.

When this criteria is not met a maximum of three occurrences is permitted.

A single activity could be included in several cost centres, many activities in one cost centre, and so on.

Example one

For example, an academic member of staff dividing their time equally between Cost centre 134 Catering and Hospitality Management and Cost centre 133 Business and Management Studies should be coded:

Example two

Why are activities and cost centres important?Back to top

There is an important tie-up between the Staff, Student and Finance Statistics records for Student: Staff Ratios and Unit Expenditure calculations amongst other uses. It is therefore useful to meet with colleagues who are responsible for the Student and Finance Statistics records in order to ensure consistency in reporting. A mismatch in the data returned for cost centres across the records could lead to your HEP appearing unusual in onwards use of the data.

Collection of cost centre dataBack to top

The Institution profile record submitted by the HEPs in May-June of the reporting year collects information on the campuses and academic cost centres that will be used by the HEP in the Staff, Student and Finance Statistics records. HEPs are advised to agree their cost centres in advance of this return. Provision of data regarding the mappings of academic departments to cost centres is compulsory for HEPs in England, and optional for HEPs in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. For the Institution profile record, assigning departments to academic cost centres is done on the basis of the full-time equivalence of academic staff, rather than that of student numbers. The FTE values reported in the Institution Profile record are forecasted and are not expected to match exactly the values reported in the Staff record.

The data collected in the Institution Profile return will be used to validate the Staff, Student and Finance Statistics returned. It is expected that in general, any academic cost centres which have staff FTE associated with them will also have student and finance data reported. Where there are mismatches between these records this will fail Exception stage validation.

Allocating cost centresBack to top

Should the cost centre reflect the department which pays the salary?

Cost centres should be allocated against the source of funding for the contract as opposed to the actual activity undertaken. This ensures consistency between the Staff and Finance records, with a similar treatment being used in the Student record.

Can cost centres be split where a staff member works across several areas?

Yes, it is sometimes the case that as part of their contract staff resources will be split across multiple departments.

A maximum of six occurrences of Contract.Activity is permitted for members of staff where any of the following criteria is met:

  • Contract.LEVELS is coded:
    • A0 'Vice-Chancellor/Principal/Head of Institution'
    • B1 'UCEA level 2A'
    • B2 'UCEA level 2B'
    • C1 'UCEA level 3A'
    • C2 'UCEA level 3B'
    • D1 'UCEA level 3/4A1'
    • D2 'UCEA level 3/4A2'
    OR
  • Contract.ACEMPFUN is coded 4 'Not an academic contract'
  • OR
  • All instances of Activity.ACTSOC are in the SOC2010 Major Groups 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9.

When this criteria is not met a maximum of three occurrences is permitted.

Where a member of staff is contracted to work in more than three (or six) cost centres as part of their role, the three (or six) cost centres where the most activity takes place should be returned.

For example:

A member of staff's contract activity is split across four cost centres. The HEP can only return three. The three in which the employee is most active are returned to HESA. The FTE would then need to be apportioned between the three remaining cost centres.

Example three

Proportion in cost centreBack to top

Activity.CCPROP records the proportion of the contract held in the cost centre. For example, if a member of staff spends 40% of their time in cost centre 134, Activity.CCPROP would be completed with 040.00.

Members of staff whose activity has moved from one cost centre to another within the reporting period should be reported within each relevant cost centre according to the time spent in each cost centre.

Note that the sum of all values in all occurrences of the Activity.CCPROP for a given contract's activities must fall within the range 099.7 - 100.3 in order to pass the Quality rules.

Where a member only works for part of the year, should the proportion be reduced?

No, the proportion in the cost centre refers to the proportion of the contracted activity and not the proportion of the year therefore the sum of all occurrences of Activity.CCPROP should always equal between 099.7 - 100.3.

For example, a member of teaching staff whose contract runs from 01 August 2012 to 30 March 2013 and spreads their time evenly between Catering and Hospitality management, Business and Management Studies and Sports science & leisure studies would be coded as follows:

  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>231</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>134</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>033.3</CCPROP>
  </Activity>
  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>231</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>133</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>033.3</CCPROP>
  </Activity>
  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>231</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>108</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>033.3</CCPROP>
  </Activity>

Coding Activity.CCPROP Examples

1. A member of staff's contract requires them to spend 30% of their time working in an academic capacity in the Art and Design cost centre, 40% of their time as an academic in the Media studies department and spends the remaining 30% of their working week as a warden in a student hall of residence.

  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>231</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>143</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>030.0</CCPROP>
  </Activity>
  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>231</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>145</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>040.0</CCPROP>
  </Activity>
  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>614</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>204</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>030.0</CCPROP>
  </Activity>

2. A member of staff is contracted to spend 90% of their time in an academic capacity, spread evenly across three cost centres: Health and Community studies, Nursing and allied health professions and Pharmacy and Pharmacology. For the remaining 10% they work in a non-academic capacity in the Staff and Student Facilities cost centre.

  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>231</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>105</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>033.3</CCPROP>
  </Activity>
  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>231</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>103</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>033.3</CCPROP>
  </Activity>
  
  <Activity>
    <ACTSOC>231</ACTSOC>
    <CCENTRE>107</CCENTRE>
    <CCPROP>033.3</CCPROP>
  </Activity>

In this example, although the staff member works across four different activities and cost centres, only three can be returned therefore only the main three are returned.


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