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UCL policy as laid out in UCL Finance regulations
Discretionary Funds shall include all Funds except those covered by: the Departmental Allocation (HEFCE funds); Research Grants, Contracts, Consultancy agreements or other such agreements administered by the Finance Division ; Endowment Funds; and, Short Course funds. For the avoidance of doubt, income from services rendered will be deemed to be Discretionary Funds unless they are administered by the Finance Division when they will be deemed to be Research Grants, Contracts or Consultancy Agreements.
22. The opening of account codes for Discretionary Funds is under the direct control of the Director of Finance [TCA] to whom application should be made in writing indicating the origin of the monies and the purposes to which they will be put.
23. Heads of Department shall ensure at all times that Discretionary Fund accounts do not go overdrawn.
24. Discretionary Funds are deemed to belong to UCL, and are not normally transferable should a member of staff leave UCL's employment.
25. Where income is to be generated from sale of goods or services rendered, Heads of Department shall ensure that the full costs, including indirect costs, are taken into account when setting prices, and that VAT is charged where appropriate.
161. No member of staff may open a bank account for UCL related activity nor use the name of UCL or its departments.
Once approved, all expenditure on a discretionary account can be viewed on the FIS system
Customised reports can be prepared by the finance office given 3 working days notice.
The UCL Internal Levy
The UCL Levy was introduced in August 2003. The Levy acts as a mechanism by which the UCL Budget recovers a standard percentage of core costs from income-generating activities within Academic Departments, in recognition of the contribution of UCL Budget-funded staff time, services and facilities in the undertaking of these activities. Academic Departments receive credit for these contributions in their Resource Allocation Model (RAM) positions under Line 10 - Other Income Recoveries.
A Levy rate of 5% is applied to qualifying general and other services rendered income and a rate of 10% is applied to qualifying income earned from commercial short course and conference activities. A rate of 20% may be applied by exception to any residual consultancy activity undertaken by Academic Departments which has not been routed through UCL Consultants Ltd, the approved vehicle through which all UCL consultancy activity should be contracted. The Levy is not applied to income-generating activities undertaken by UCL Corporate Support Services.
Financial Statements
Group leaders are given monthly investigators report from the University's FIS system detailing the budget, income, expenditure and balance of their grants. Users of the FIS system can directly examine the status of their grants.
Everyone in the Institute can track all their purchases using the WORMS system and interrogate it for reports on individual, grant and group expenditure.
The intranet pages contain details of the internal charges made to each grant for - telephones, photocopying, building support and scientific support services, visitor access and IT charges.
Customised reports can be prepared by the finance office given 3 working days notice.
For further information, please see:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/finance/secure/fin_docs/discretionary_accounts1.html