AW-02 — Planning, Budgeting and Financial Monitoring

1. Purpose and scope

Purpose. To ensure that IoL has an annual operational plan with measurable objectives, a budget that funds it, monthly visibility of actuals, commitments and forecast, and a controlled route for moving money between lines, so that resource decisions are taken on evidence and within delegation, and the objectives ISO 6.2 requires exist as commitments with owners and measures.

Scope statement. This procedure manages IoL planning and financial monitoring from the receipt of MBRU's planning and budget call to the close of the financial year, including virement and carry-forward requests, using MBRU's finance and planning systems.

Applies to. The IoL operational plan and its objectives; every cost centre and budget line held by IoL; income budgets (AW-12); the resourcing of corrective actions raised by WF-04 and AW-24.

Does not apply to. MBRU strategy and the institutional envelope; payroll, tax and pension; research grant finance governed by funder terms (WF-17); individual purchases and payments, which follow AW-10 and AW-11.

2. Trigger, boundary and interfaces

3. Roles and accountability

Process owner. IoL Operations Manager or equivalent [IoL to confirm], with authority to withhold budget confirmation from any commitment not in the plan.

[CONTROL] Segregation. The budget holder who explains a variance does not approve the virement that corrects it. Where the process owner compiling the report also holds a line in it, the Senior Director, IoL, reviews that line. No one approves a virement into a line they personally spend from.

4. Procedure

1. Receive the planning call. The process owner enters every MBRU submission deadline in the AW-25 calendar and sets IoL internal dates. [CONTROL] Internal deadlines precede MBRU deadlines by at least 10 working days [IoL to confirm].

2. Draft the operational plan. The Senior Director, IoL, with budget holders, drafts the plan against IoL strategy and the MBRU plan. Each objective states what will be achieved, the measure, target, owner, resources, date and how the result will be evaluated (ISO 9001 clause 6.2.2). Inputs include AW-25 decisions, AW-06 risks needing funded treatment, WF-04 corrective actions and AW-24 CAPA items. [CONTROL] An objective without a measure and an owner is not entered in the plan.

3. Approve the plan. The IoL management committee approves the plan through AW-01 and the minute is the record of approval. Objectives are assigned in the register of objectives and reported quarterly.

4. Prepare the budget by cost centre. Each budget holder prepares their submission in MBRU's template: staffing (AW-07), non-pay, capital and equipment (AW-13 replacement schedule), income (AW-12), and the cost of every plan objective, with assumptions written down and growth bids separated from continuation. [CONTROL] Every bid traces to a plan objective or a compliance requirement; unlinked bids are returned.

5. Consolidate and submit. The process owner consolidates, checks arithmetic and coding, and the Senior Director, IoL, approves the submission before it goes to MBRU. Decision point. Where MBRU's envelope is below the submission, the Senior Director, IoL, decides which objectives are deferred, descoped or withdrawn, and the plan is re-minuted through AW-01.

6. Load and communicate the budget. When MBRU confirms the allocation, the process owner checks the finance system reflects it and issues each budget holder a statement of approved lines and AW-05 limits. [CONTROL] No commitment is made under AW-10 or AW-11 before the line is loaded.

7. Monitor monthly. After each month-end close the process owner issues a report per cost centre: budget, actuals, commitments (open AW-10 purchase orders), forecast outturn, variance, and income against target. Budget holders explain any line outside tolerance [IoL to confirm; assumed 10% or a fixed amount, whichever is lower]. [CONTROL] Forecasts are updated by the budget holder, not rolled forward unchanged.

8. Act on variance. Decision point. The budget holder proposes one of: recover within the line, virement, descope the related objective, or escalate for additional resource. The Senior Director, IoL, decides within delegation and the decision is recorded on the report. Persistent adverse variance is entered in the AW-06 risk register.

9. Process virement requests. A request states source line, destination line, amount, reason and the effect on the objectives funded by each. Within the departmental limit the Senior Director, IoL, approves; above it, or between pay and non-pay, or capital and revenue, MBRU Finance approves [IoL to confirm]. The virement is confirmed on the next monitoring report. [CONTROL] Virements are not split to stay within delegation; transfers between the same two lines within a quarter are treated as one.

10. Decide resource requests from WF-04 and AW-24. A corrective action needing resource arrives as a costed request. The process owner identifies the funding route (existing line, virement, contingency, or a bid in the next cycle) and the Senior Director, IoL, decides. The decision, with the budget line or the reasons for refusal, is returned to the requesting workflow so that the action's due date rests on a real resource. [CONTROL] No WF-04 action is recorded as resourced until this procedure has confirmed the line.

11. Report quarterly. Objective attainment and the financial position go to the IoL management committee through AW-01 and, at year-end, to AW-25 as the resource-adequacy input.

12. Close the year. Before MBRU's deadline the process owner collects accruals for goods and services received but not invoiced, prepayments, and carry-forward requests for committed but unspent funds, each with justification, and the Senior Director, IoL, approves. [CONTROL] An accrual is supported by an AW-10 goods-received note or a contract milestone; estimates without evidence are not accrued. Outturn is reconciled to the ledger and the register of objectives is closed with a result against each measure.

Exception routes. Emergency spend (safety, learner-facing outage, regulator requirement) may be authorised by the Senior Director, IoL, ahead of a budget line, with a virement or resource request raised within 5 working days. Income shortfall in AW-12 is escalated at the monthly report and the dependent objectives reviewed. An in-year change to the envelope re-opens the plan through AW-01.

5. Service standards

6. Records, retention and controls

Key controls. (1) Every objective has a measure, a target, an owner and a date. (2) No commitment before the budget line is loaded. (3) Monthly report issued for every cost centre with forecast updated by the budget holder. (4) Virement approval matches the AW-05 delegation and virements are not split. (5) The person explaining a variance does not approve the correcting virement. (6) Accruals are evidenced. (7) WF-04 actions are resourced here or not at all.

OBEF touchpoint. None. The resource decision on a WF-04 action is held here; the action and its OBEF rationale remain in WF-04.

7. Performance measures

8. Change control