Purchase orders that are not for research purposes and are £10,000 or more will go through an approval process made by a newly formed Financial Control Group.

This comes as part of the university’s efforts to close the existing budget gap by implementing tighter spending controls.

Although some progress has been made and we have seen overall spend reduced across the university, unfortunately this is insufficient at present and further measures need to be considered.

Next steps

UEB have established the Financial Control Group, chaired by Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Engineering, Professor Sam Kingman.

The main role of the group will be to review all non-research purchase orders over £10,000 (including VAT) and provide final sign off, taking into consideration priorities such as potential impact on student and staff experience, value for money and strategic importance.

The group first met last week (W/C 22 April) and will continue meeting weekly for the foreseeable future.

Purchase order process

Nothing about the current process in relation to raising and completing purchase orders will change. Purchase orders are to be raised and approved as per the normal process.

Once approved, orders will be diverted to the finance team for collation and only submitted to the Financial Control Group for final review if £10,000 or over.

Please follow the correct process and raise purchase orders in advance of requesting goods or services – any retrospective orders will be highlighted to the Group. Orders raised will also be tracked by supplier, so repeat orders for the same supplier that fall under £10,000 will be monitored.

As this is a new process that we are working through, it may result in delays in purchase order approvals – we will endeavour to expedite this as much as possible, thank you for your understanding.

If you have any further questions please contact your departmental finance representative.