Monday to Friday:

09:00 - 17:00

Please be aware that due to the nature of our work, it is possible that our team are working off site. If this is the case, please contact us via email

Julia Raftery Consulting Ltd
Suite 2,

Concorde House,

Kirmington Business Park

Kirmington

North Lincolnshire

DN39 6YP

As experienced advisors to Academies, we can offer a service tailored to your individual needs. We understand the need for compliance with current legislation, policies and procedures, and we strive to improve your internal controls and performance.

Our services include:

• Responsible Officer

• Internal Audits for both financial and non financial systems

• Preparation of Financial Procedures Manuals

• Review services including Risk Management, Governance and Value-for-money

• Fraud Investigations

• Budget planning

• Advice and assurance in relation to implementation and development of new systems

For all Academy schools, we can work alongside the EFA (Education Funding Agency), Governors and Management to provide support pre, during and post conversion.

We are able to offer advice and guidance should the school wish to consider becoming an academy. This would include:-

• Overview of the school’s current processes and production of improvement plans to meet the requirements to becoming an academy;

• Gap analysis in terms of meeting the requirements of the Academies Financial Handbook;

• Advice on the Governing Body and Committee Terms of Reference and Scheme of Delegation;

• Start up audit to provide assurance on new governance arrangements and academy policies;

• Review of new key financial systems, e.g. finance and payroll including assurance on data transfer;

• Assistance in the completion of EFA Academies Financial Management and Governance Evaluation;

• Support to the Finance / Audit committee;

• Risk Management arrangements and governance;

• Advice on or assistance in the production of the Fixed Asset Register;

• Responsible Officer Assurance

• Full risk based audit - coverage and regularity to meet the needs of the academy;

• Presentation of audit findings to Governors;

• Liaison with the external auditor;

• Continuous advice service.

Clearly, as a school moves towards conversion, the nature and focus of internal audit work could change. The need for a Responsible Officer which fits most appropriately within a wider internal audit function will become a requirement, as indeed will the need to appoint an external auditor, with whom internal audit should work closely.

We will look to ensure that the scope of our internal audit work is properly aligned with your changing assurance requirements and risk profile.

Once you make the decision, we will use the transition period to identify to you those matters that we see as critical to the school in the run up to conversion, and beyond. Support for financial management will depend largely on decisions you make, such as changes to accounting systems, payroll etc. However, the internal financial control environment will already have been the subject of work by ourselves that will be informed by your conversion time line, so we can flag up any internal control issues as part of our routine planned work at the time so that it is fit for purpose as the academy conversion period draws ever closer.