INTERNAL CHARGING

I am writing to remind you of the change in procedures which occurred from 1 April 2003. From this date County Council Departments (including schools) cannot send invoices, and subsequently cheques, to other departments or schools. All payments must be by internal charge following agreement of all the necessary terms and details by both parties.

To assist schools in facilitating this procedure you will receive, via your courier, a supply of two sets of revised Internal Charge Request forms for charges occurring between schools. Once completed and authorised by the relevant schools involved these are to be sent to Children's Services, Finance and ICT, for processing and subsequent download of charges to schools.

You will also receive a set of query forms. These should be completed and returned to Belinda Webster, Chlldren's Services, Finance and ICT, if you require further information about a transaction on your download. Queries can also be emailed to efs.fso@norfolk.gov.uk. Please note that we prefer not to receive queries via the telephone as it is not good financial practice to action transactions on a school's behalf without written authorisation.

On one set of forms you will note that the subjective analysis codes are fixed as 7452 (Payments to Other Schools) for the debit charge and 9900 (Payments from Other Schools) for the corresponding credit. These forms should be used for transfers of funding between schools, ie to transfer cluster funding between schools. The second set of forms are for those schools who have shared utility costs (ie electricity, gas or water) - the coding has been left blank on these forms to enable you to code against the relevant subjective codes for these costs.

This is to comply with Consistent Financial Reporting as required by the DfES and Audit Commission. Budgets should be amended appropriately at the next revision to accommodate any changes resulting from internal charging.

If you have any queries concerning internal charging, please contact your Finance Support Officer.