NEWS

Depreciation under Self-Financing

The consultation itself is closed but CIPFA’s Guidance and draft proposals on Depreciation can be downloaded here.

Further guidance will be available here soon - in the meantime, the current accounting treatment (and reversals allowed in the transition period) stand.

Treasury Management under the Self-Financing

CIPFA’s Guidance on Treasury Management is still available for download here.

Self-financing: update concerning PWLB Arrangement fees for new loans

CIPFA now has an update to our earlier guidance on treasury management issues around the arrangement of new loans for those authorities intending to borrow through the PWLB in readiness for the implementation of Self-Financing.

For those of you who have purchased the CIPFA Guide to Housing Self-Financing, the amendment now needed to paragraph 40 on Page 9 is as follows:

The government has agreed to pay costs relating to the arrangement of new loansthrough the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) or redemption fees.

So paragraph 40 should now read:

Debt and the Rate of Interest

Depreciation under Self-Financing

CIPFA’s 2010 consultations resulted in a lot of very detailed issues from local authorities and we are still working - with the DCLG and with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors - on possible solutions that will work for all cases.

The next steps for CIPFA will be to issue a LAAP Bulletin probably in early February (LAAP bulletins have to be considered by the Local authority Accounting Panel) and after DCLG’s final determinations have been issued. The Bulletin will set out some of the accounting issues. A separate and later bulletin or paper is expected to provide more guidance on depreciation.

It is important to remember though that our proposals on depreciation have a five year transitional period, so that essentially, in the meantime, the current account treatment (and reversals allowed in the transition period) stand.

Borrowing for self-financing – CIPFA correspondence

CIPFA wrote to the Chief Secretary of the Treasury to express concerns included in the PWLB announcement on 21 November that the reduced rate loans for authorities borrowing for the Self-Financing settlement will be available only on 26 March and not – as previously heralded – from January to 26 March. Click below to read the texts of CIPFA’s letter and the Chief Secretary’s reply.

Letter 1
Letter 2
Chief Secretary's reply

Note: The Treasury has confirmed that the Chief Secretary’s letter is actually “Unclassified” and not “Restricted”.

Self-Financing and Depreciation Accounting: an update

CIPFA’s consultation on draft proposals for calculating the depreciation charge to be applied to the housing revenue account after the introduction of the new housing finance system, self-financing, went out at the end of August.  Please click here for the full update and a related Q and A.

The Guide to Housing Self-Financing

2012 brings the biggest change to local authority housing finance for almost 25 years. As a result, CIPFA has produced this latest guidance to assist practitioners through the change process and to help with implementation.

For further details visit CIPFA Shop.

Housing Section 20 Major Works: Final Accounts Billing Toolkit

As a landlord of sold or rented dwellings, you must properly manage and maintain their common elements and recharge tenants and leaseholders any maintenance and management expenses you incur.

However, with complex legal requirements and administrative demands, many local authorities are unable to properly identify the amounts they have spent – leading to under-estimation of costs and write-offs losing them many millions of pounds.

CIPFA has developed a new toolkit to make it easier to claim the landlord expenses you are due.

Visit the CIPFA shop to find out more about how thias toolkit can help you.

Volunteer Feedback Survey
We are always eager to hear existing (and potential) panel members' views on how we can help support you better. The Volunteer Survey offers a formal mechanism for you to feed back your views to CIPFA.

EVENTS

Details of relevant events will be placed here as soon as they become available