Auditing services

Tender description

The University of Birmingham is tendering the services of external auditor for statutory accounts purposes and invites suitably experienced firms to tender for the provision of these services. The purpose and primary objective of this tender process is therefore to appoint a provider of external audit services to the University and a number of its subsidiaries, all of which have a 31 July year end. It is expected that the agreed fee will be on a fixed fee basis but it should be clear what is considered part of that fixed fee and what, if any items, would incur additional charges. External audit services The external audit requirements are for: — a statutory opinion on the Group’s consolidated financial statements, — a report on the compliance of the governance statement with the OfS Accounts Direction, — an internal report on the audit outcomes including recommendations for improvements to processes and procedures identified during the audit, — a management letter for submission to the OfS. The work should be carried out in a manner that ensures that the external auditors meet their specific duties and responsibilities to provide opinions in line with legislative and regulatory requirements and timetables. It is expected that the work will be undertaken in the main on site and that there will be interim and year end audit visits. The external auditors are also required to carry out audits in respect of the University’s: — subsidiary companies being Alta Cyclotron Ltd, University of Birmingham Enterprise Ltd, Alta Birmingham China Ltd (with an operation in China) and Birmingham Global Ltd, Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Ltd, and — US Federal Loans. We would also expect the external audit provider to demonstrate a collaborative approach to sharing and advising on the implementation of best practice, a small element of this is the requirement to provide a short (2-3 hour) annual training session for University Finance staff on current accounting and technical issues. The fees currently paid for external audit are disclosed in the annual report and accounts, a copy of which can be found at https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/university/governance/Council/accounts.aspx The external auditor may also be asked to provide audits of grant claims and other funded returns on an ad-hoc basis. The external audit provider is also required to perform work of limited scope and to issue opinions and reports to third parties in relation to: — Land and bank loan covenants, — NCTL grants, — Teachers’ Pension Scheme annual return, — OfS grants e.g. RPIF. It is possible that during the term of appointment additional companies will be created, it is expected that the external audit provider will be appointed to audit these. The appointment of the external audit provider will be for an annual renewable period subject to annual performance and extent of contract compliance review up to a maximum of 3 years.