SchoolDocs appreciates the input of the BDO Christchurch Audit and Assurance team in the review of these policies and procedures.
|
|
FINANCE AND PROPERTY TOPICS
|
Finance and Property Management Policy
|
- Added detail about board delegations.
- Made the link to a school's Schedule of Delegations more obvious (for those that supply this).
|
Managing Income and Expenditure
|
- Added detail about the annual operating budget and schools can add detail about financial services they use.
- Moved the wording from the Annual Audit topic (now obsolete) into this topic.
- Added detail about EFTPOS and online banking.
- Removed detail about cheques and schools can add more detail about petty cash, including reimbursement claim details.
- Added detail about borrowing, including finance leases.
|
Financial Committee
|
- Added a link to the Financial Information for Schools Handbook.
- Added Related topics.
|
Board Representative
|
- Added a link to the Financial Information for Schools Handbook.
- Added Related topics.
|
Budget
|
- Made wording and style improvements.
- Added detail about mid-year budget review.
|
Conflict of Interest
|
- This topic has been substantially revised to simplify it.
- This policy is about managing actual, potential, and perceived financial conflicts of interest and is most relevant for board members and any employees with delegated financial decision-making authority.
|
Income
|
- This is a new topic to host income-related subtopics.
|
School Donations and Student Activity Payments
|
- Combined School Donations and Student Activity Payments topics (optional topic).
- Added new optional wording about unpaid debts being forwarded to a debt collection agency.
- Schools using the government's school donations scheme don't have these topics.
|
School Donations (government scheme)
|
- Schools using the government's school donations scheme have this topic.
- Added new optional wording about unpaid debts being forwarded to a debt collection agency.
|
Catholic Schools Attendance Dues and Other Income
|
- Added wording to the green note about students not being denied access to a Catholic school because parents/caregivers are unable to pay attendance dues in full.
- Added new optional wording about unpaid debts being forwarded to a debt collection agency.
- Simplified the wording under Fundraising for clarity and readability.
|
Integrated Schools Attendance Dues and Other Income
|
- Added wording to the green note about students not being denied access to an integrated school because parents/caregivers are unable to pay attendance dues in full.
- Added details about special character contributions.
- Added new optional wording about unpaid debts being forwarded to a debt collection agency.
- Simplified the wording under Fundraising for clarity and readability.
|
Fundraising
|
- This topic no longer contains wording about school donations.
- Added a statement about how money is spent.
- Some schools still have wording about who the school's fundraising contact is. At rollout, we will remove this wording.
- On the advice of our auditors, we no longer include the statement "Model school is a registered charity."
|
Sponsorship (optional)
|
- Simplified the wording and reformatted content for clarity and readability.
|
Expenditure
|
- This is a new topic that includes content that was previously in the Managing Income and Expenditure topic.
- Changes include:
- removing the "No budget line is overspent..." wording
- giving schools the option to specify which expense approval system they use (e.g. Approval Max)
- adding wording about loyalty scheme rewards/points
- adding detail about reimbursement requests
- adding wording about transaction reports
- adding information under Payroll, including details about checking SUE, leave, and banking staff reports.
|
Sensitive Expenditure
|
- Simplified the wording for clarity and readability.
|
Concurrence
|
- Added this topic to all schools' sites to cover additional payments or benefits to a principal outside those covered in the principal's collective agreement or individual employment agreement.
|
Travel Expenditure
|
- Simplified the wording and rearranged the content for clarity and readability.
|
Entertainment Expenditure
|
- Simplified the wording for clarity and readability.
|
Gifts
|
- Removed the reference to a "consistent formula" in determining gifts for staff.
- Added options for schools to add wording about giving gifts in recognition of community partnerships; and receiving gifts/bequests, etc.
- Added wording to clarify what it means for a gift to arise from an employee's role as an employee of the board.
- Added a link to the Conflict of Interest topic, and detail about gifts of cash being inappropriate.
- Added a section on receiving securities as a gift.
|
Gifts for Staff (optional)
|
- This topic was previously in the Employer Responsibility section.
- Added information about risks and considerations in gifts for staff.
- Removed the option for schools to include a table outlining gift value based on years of service.
|
Bank Cards (optional)
|
- This is a new version of the optional Credit and Charge Cards topic. It also incorporates content from Debit Card.
- Updated the content including:
- adding information about payments being authorised on a one-up basis
- adding wording about purchases being accounted for as soon as possible after receiving a statement.
|
Asset Management and Protection
|
- Renamed from Asset Management and clarified our definition of assets and the asset register process for schools.
- Added bullet points about a cost-effective purchase process, 5-year asset management plan, and approving an annual budget for fixed-asset purchases.
- The topic now includes a section about disposal of assets.
|
Property Maintenance
|
- Consolidated property policies into one Property Maintenance topic.
- Added a cyclical maintenance section.
- Added detail about claiming for property damage.
|
Personal Property and Insurance
|
- Updated wording about insurance claims for personal property, including responsibilities of students, staff, and the board.
|
School Security
|
- We no longer ask schools to provide the name of their security company and will be removing this from any topics that still have this information.
|
Camera Surveillance Guidelines (optional)
|
- This topic has been updated to clarify how schools are responsible for adhering to the Privacy Act when handling any personal information.
|
Computer Security and Cybersecurity
|
- Added information about creating strong passwords and accessing school networks remotely.
|
Prevention of Bribery, Corruption, Fraud, and Theft
|
- Reordered some content in this topic to make processes for prevention and detection clearer.
- Clarified the responsibility of the school community, and added more information about our reporting procedures.
- Added a legislative reference that governs this procedure and updated the resources.
|
Theft by Students
|
- Content has been reworded for clarity.
|
Use of School Buildings Outside School Hours
|
- Reviewed and no content changes proposed.
|
Sleepovers at School
|
- Updated information about people staying overnight on school grounds.
- This topic now links to EOTC content and updated fire safety regulations.
|
School Vehicles (optional)
|
- The name of this topic has been updated from School Van to School Vehicles, to cover a wider range of vehicles.
- We've organised the guidelines into driver and passenger responsibilities, and clarified the responsibilities of the school.
- Added a link to the Ministry of Education's information about purchasing passenger vehicles for a school.
|
School Houses (optional)
|
- Updated the wording in this topic to work better for schools that may have more than one house.
|
Staff Resources
|
- Incorporated content from Staff Laptops into this topic under the broader heading of devices for staff use.
- Added a bullet about preserving and protecting school-owned intellectual property.
- This topic now links to related security and cybersecurity topics.
|
The topics below have been retired and their content is now covered in other topics:
|
Financial Control and Expenditure
|
- Content has been moved to Finance and Property Management Policy.
|
Annual Audit
|
- Content has been moved to Managing Income and Expenditure.
|
School Donations and Fundraising
|
- Content has been moved to Income and Fundraising.
|
The Alarm System
|
- Content has been incorporated into School Security.
|
Staff Laptops
|
- Content has been moved to Staff Resources.
|
Property
Property Reports and Checks
Capital Works Programmes
Damage to School Property
|
- Content has been moved to Property Maintenance.
- We no longer include a table outlining who is responsible for requests for maintenance, employing tradespeople etc. See Property.
|
