CSP004: NIHR CRN Funding - Finance Tool Reporting Guidance

This document provides the fifteen Local Clinical Research Networks (LCRNs) with guidance on reporting how NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) funding is spent, using the Annual Financial Plans (AFPs) and quarterly financial returns that are available within the CRN Finance Tool.

LCRNs should use the CRN Finance Tool to report how CRN funding is spent only. Expenditure against any other income stream should not be reported in the quarterly financial returns. Note, there can be no overspend of the total CRN funding allocation.

CRN funding is allocated to the fifteen LCRNs annually, with each LCRN being informed of their allocation for the following financial year in winter/early spring each year.

Some parts of the annual allocation must be spent on specific items, for example the national top-sliced funding, and allowances are provided for some other areas. However the bulk of CRN funding will be spent on delivering clinical research in both NHS and non-NHS settings. 

The CRN Finance Tool is a cloud-hosted IT system and is managed by the Finance Team with the CRN Coordinating Centre (CRNCC). It enables the collection of relevant financial data from LCRNs about how their annual funding allocations are spent and allows the CRNCC to analyse and report on LCRN financial performance.

The CRNCC provides reports to a number of stakeholders including the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the CRN Executive team, LCRNs and internal directorates within the CRNCC.

Expenditure should be reported against the organisation in which it occurs, whether this is an NHS organisation or a non-NHS organisation. For those in the flexible workforce, this will be against the substantive employing organisation, but with the understanding the individual(s) will work across multiple organisations.  LCRNs are able to choose whether expenditure is reported at a line level detail or in an aggregated way. For example, rather than detailing an expenditure item at an individual staff level, the financial return can group certain staff expenditure items together therefore reducing the number of rows of data.

LCRNs are reminded that all recipients of CRN funding should have a sub-contract in place with the LCRN Host Organisation.

Use the following link for access to the CRN Finance Tool. Accounts for the CRN Finance Tool will be created by the CRNCC, solely at the request of the LCRN core Finance team.

Should you have any queries regarding completion or submission of the AFP or quarterly financial returns, please contact the LCRN Finance team in the CRNCC via crnfinance@nihr.ac.uk or 0113 343 2314.

Any technical problems with the CRN Finance Tool should also be reported to the LCRN Finance team in the CRNCC via crnfinance@nihr.ac.uk or 0113 343 2314. The CRNCC will record the issue and escalate to the supplier for fixing if required.

The CRN Finance Tool includes categorisation to capture the Public Health Prevention Research (PHPR) Funded posts (Local Authority Support Role and the Consultant Role). Following small underspends in 2022/23 approval was given for the use of these on training for PHPR staff. A Non-Staff category is now available in the Finance tool to capture these.

Should one of the PHPR posts become vacant during the 23/24 financial year you will not be permitted to recruit a replacement and underspends should be reported. 

From Q2 in 2022/23, the CRN Finance Tool data structure included an additional return form for the Host organisation to allow for clear identification of expenditure in line with the Performance & Operating Framework Part C, 16. Additional expenditure incurred outside of this contractual requirement and covering NHS support services is now to be reported under an additional Partner Organisation (PO) return in the finance tool. This PO was initially referred to as “Host Delivery Expenditure” but later renamed “Central Network Costs” in Q3 following feedback from CRN Finance Tool users. This separation is still required for 2023/24 and is noted here as a reminder due to its recent occurrence. No further changes have been made. 

DHSC has confirmed that the 2023/24 NHS AfC pay awards for LCRN/R&D staff should be paid from a combination of the Cost Uplift Factor (CUF), the additional funding provided to ICBs and the additional CRN Funding that has been provided in 2023/24

Where non-CRN Funding (i.e funding through ICBs, Trusts and NHS employers) is being used to cover the AfC 2023/24 pay award this does not need to be included in your quarterly financial returns to the CRNCC. Where local reporting practices make it difficult to disaggregate this funding from CRN Funding for each staff line or this would provide excessive additional work for partners and LCRN core teams, the below work around had been provided. 

To allow for the continued reporting of full staff costs a new Budget Sub-Category Detail has been created called “Pay Award Deflator”. This is to be used as a negative amount equal to the amount of the 2023/24 pay award uplift being received from non-CRN Funding (i.e funding routed through ICBs) at each PO. For reporting purposes a negative line will be needed for each relevant staff category at the Budget Sub-Category level (i.e. Nurses and Midwives, Practitioners, Service support… etc).

The “Pay Award Deflator” line is classified as a Staff Cost and as such will need a value against PA or WTE to meet the CRN Finance Tools conditions. Please report a 0.01 PA against this line.  To meet other conditions in the CRN Finance Tool the following categorisations should be used; "Cross-Specialty" for Specialty, and "Multiple Bands" for Band. 

Contact crnfinance@nihr.ac.uk with any questions. 

Costs associated with the diagnostic, investigational and therapeutic support services are provided through pathology, pharmacy, radiology, radiotherapy, cardiology and respiratory and defined as a service support cost by AcoRD can be grouped and reported on a single line as a staff cost and attributed to multiple posts with a nominal WTE / PA of 0.01. Please ensure that these block allocations are recorded as 0.01 WTE in the finance tool to ensure that these can be identified correctly. 

Consultant block allocations should be reported as 0.01 WTE (not PA), and as multiple bands.

Alternatively, allied health professionals and social care professionals supporting research and regulated by professional bodies can be reported on individual lines as a staff cost.

There are only two roles available to LCRNs and one role to Partner organisations:

• LCRN Final Approver - this role is responsible for submitting the final LCRN AFP and quarterly financial returns to the CRNCC. A user with this level of permission is expected to be the LCRN Chief Operating Officer or Deputy Chief Operating Officer.

• LCRN Finance Manager - this role is responsible for reviewing and amending the AFP and quarterly Partner financial returns, prior to approval by LCRN Final Approver and submission to CRNCC. This role may incorporate the PO User role activities for all Partner organisations within the LCRN, dependent on the model under which the LCRN operates.

• PO User - dependent on the model under which the LCRN operates, this role may be responsible for populating the AFP and quarterly financial returns for a single Partner organisation, and submitting them to the LCRN for approval.

Historical financial data has not been migrated from the old CRN Finance Tool to the new CRN Finance Tool. Instead, historical financial data from the financial year 2014/15 will be made available on NIHR ODP. 

In the main, expenditure is reported against the organisation in receipt of the CRN funding, in line with the payment schedules in the Category A, B and C Partner organisation sub-contracts. A separate financial return is required for each of these organisations, and can be completed and submitted by either the Partner organisation staff, or by the LCRN core team.

There are some organisations which are ‘grouped’ together, typically where the amount of CRN funding is small, and only require a single financial return. These are:

• Care Homes

• Hospices

• ISHP (Independent Sector Healthcare Providers), including Social Enterprises

• Local Authorities

• Primary Care

• Prisons

• Schools

LCRN Hosts are reminded to inform the CRNCC of the dissolution, merger or change to name of any LCRN Partner organisation. Such changes will be made within the CRN Finance Tool by the CRNCC at an appropriate time.

CRN funding is used to provide the NHS with an excellent clinical research infrastructure which supports delivery of the CRN Portfolio and facilitates participation of NHS patients, carers and others in these studies throughout England.

This infrastructure includes a coordinated and efficient workforce of research management and support staff and facilities, funding to meet NHS Support Costs and other eligible costs as defined by DHSC in the document ‘Attributing the costs of health and social care research and development (‘AcoRD’).¹

All expenditure, whether forecast or actual, must be reported in accordance with accruals accounting principles. Expenditure should be reported in the period to which it relates, which in practical terms is when a product is delivered or a service is provided, regardless of when the cash transaction occurs.

CRN funding should be held in ring fenced accounts and reconcile to the Host and Partner Organisation’s general ledger (as per BC2 and BC4 of the CSP007 LCRN Minimum Controls).

Expenditure that relates to future financial years must not be recognised in the current year, even if a contractual commitment has been entered into.

The value of expenditure reported by LCRNs must agree with the value of transactions that have been recorded in the Host and Partner Organisations’ accounts, and a clear audit trail should exist to support this.

At year end the expenditure reported on the CRN Finance Tool will be compared with figures reported in the NHS Agreement of Balances exercise and any discrepancies will be investigated.

Following approval of Q4 financial returns, the LCRN Chief Operating Officer and the Host Trust Finance Director will be required to sign and submit a declaration to confirm that reported expenditure reconciles to the underlying ledgers of the Host and Partner organisations.

The table below details the required reporting of actual versus forecast expenditure by the required quarterly financial returns.

LCRNs should make every effort to identify potential underspends and inform the CRNCC of such as early as possible in the financial year. The CRNCC will discuss the potential underspend with the LCRN, and may seek to redistribute this funding across the network.

Underspends reported at or near the financial year end cannot be managed easily and will reflect badly on the CRN if they are of material value.

DHSC will not accept any deferred income balances at year end. Therefore any underspend at year end must be treated as such in Partner organisation accounts. In addition, any unspent funds must be available for recovery in the following year.

Each quarter, the LCRN Host should complete and return a commentary relating to the expenditure. The template will be made available in the Support Documentation folder.

Commentaries must be reviewed, signed and dated by the LCRN Chief Operating Officer or Deputy Chief Operating Officer prior to being uploaded to the CRN Finance Tool. The deadline for submission of the commentaries will be the same as that for the quarterly financial returns.

In adherence with GDPR, no personal identifiable data (PID) should be included in the quarterly finance returns.

¹Attributing the costs of health and social care Research & Development (AcoRD)

The CRN Finance Tool no longer provides the option to select ‘staff’ or ‘non-staff’ when entering data. The system recognises which costs are staff and which are non-staff. When entering staff costs, users must select Band and either WTE or PA.

This is a pre-populated field. The Item ID is allocated to a line on a financial return and will remain throughout that financial year.

This is a pre-populated field. One of the 15 LCRNs which, with the CRNCC, form the Clinical Research Network. The LCRN comprises the Host organisation and all the Partner organisations in the region. An LCRN Partner organisation is any organisation in receipt of CRN funding.

This is a pre-populated field. The organisation in receipt of CRN funding, for which the item of expenditure is being reported. For staff costs, this will usually be the employing organisation, not the work location, unless a recharge of costs has taken place.

Financial treatment: No financial treatment required. Where dissolutions, mergers or name changes occur in year, please contact the CRNCC on crnfinance@nihr.ac.uk to discuss any change to the funding allocations.

This field will be displayed on screen and on reports, but will not appear on the spreadsheet downloads.

Select from the drop down list. An indicator of whether a post is vacant, filled or closed. 

Select from the drop down list. The salary band of the individual staff member being reported. For Independent Sector Healthcare Providers and non-NHS/non-HEI organisations that do not align with the bandings listed, please select 'Other'. 

Whole Time Equivalent. Whole Time Equivalent (sometimes referred to as FTE 'Full Time Equivalent') shows the proportion of a full working week that is worked by the staff member being reported, e.g. enter 0.5 to show the staff member works 2.5 days per week.

The WTE is not affected by a staff member working part of the year, e.g. a full-time staff member who is only employed for three months should be reported as 1.0 WTE for the three months of work.

Financial Treatment: Within each quarter’s financial return the WTE should reflect the proportion of time the individual worked on CRN funded activities.

There is no need to remove the WTE when the individual has either left the organisation or is not funded via the CRN. This is on the basis that the role has been categorised as 'closed' and the WTE will be removed from the analysis.

Programmed Activity. A 'session' of work of four hours duration. This should only be used if ‘Consultant’ is selected in the Band field.

This is a free text field for LCRNs to note information about the financial data. Due to GDPR No personal identifiable data (PID) should be included in this field.

A number of data checks have been incorporated into the CRN Finance Tool and are designed to alert LCRNs to potential data entry errors within returns. Some of the checks are held within the data fields structure itself, for example preventing WTE from being entered for a non-staff item, as noted in section 8. Other checks are carried out in the summary tab when a return is uploaded to the CRN Finance Tool, as noted below. No validation steps are built into the spreadsheet template. The CRN Finance Tool will alert users to any errors in the data by displaying a message on the screen.

• Host Corporate Support Costs is less than or equal to the lower of 2% or £400k of total funding (excluding top-sliced funding).

• Overheads at each PO should not exceed 8% of staff costs less top-sliced, Host Corporate Support Costs and Unallocated Funds staff costs.

• Contingency should be less than 10% of total funding at AFP, 5% at Q1, 2% at Q2, 1% at Q3 and 0% at Q4.

• Strategic Funding should include all ring-fenced Targeting Under-Served Communities Funding, and should therefore be at a minimum, 2% of Total Funding.

Version number:  2.0 

Effective from: 01/04/2023 

Change(s) from V1.3:

• Section 3 was updated to remove in year changes from 2022/23 in preparation to display any in year changes during 2023/24. A number of recent changes were kept in this section for information while most of the information about new sections introduced in 2022/23 has been moved into table 9.5. 

• A description of integrated care boards was add to table 9.4.

• Table 9.5 was updated to fully reflect new categories' added during 2022/23 alongside other amendments to ensure consistency in naming conventions between the CRN Finance Tool and the CSP. 

Version number: 1.3

Effective from: 20 December 2022

Change(s) from V1.2:

• Added the following text to Section 1.2: 'DHSC has confirmed additional CRN funding totalling c.£4.3m in relation to the 2022/23 Pay Award cost pressures. LCRNs should determine how to allocate this funding across their Partners. Reporting of this funding should be included in the 2022/23 Q3 financial returns and has been added to the CRN Finance Tool against the Core funding stream. If any of this funding has to be allocated against the Transforming Research funding category, please highlight it in your Commentary Document and in the Comments field on your finance return. The funding should not be used against Top-Sliced, ETC Service Funding or Public Health Prevention Funding, as these already include uplifts within the 2022/23 funding.'

•  Updated wording of Section 3.1

• Section 3.5 Host Expenditure replaced with Section 3.5 Central Network Costs

• Added Section 3.6 National Contract Value Review (NCVR)

• Added 9.5.2.7 National Contract Value Review (NCVR), 9.5.2.7.1 Capacity/Skill Level, 9.5.2.7.2 National Prioritisation and 9.5.2.7.3 Community of Practice to Section 9.

Version number: 1.2

Effective from: 12 October 2022

Change(s) from V1.1:

• Added the following text to Section 3.2.1: '...and have been advised of their individual funding allocations as recorded in the CRN Finance Tool'

• Added Section 3.5. Host Delivery Expenditure

• Section 3.4. updated with new wording

Version number: 1.1 

Effective from: 16 September 2022

Change(s) from V1.0:

• Document title changed from 'CSP004: NIHR CRN Funding Reporting' to 'CSP004: NIHR CRN Funding - Finance Tool Reporting Guidance'

• Telephone number added to Section 2. Contact and System Support.

• Removed Section 3.1. Cessation of Vaccine pump-prime funding 

• Added Section 3.3. Targeting Under-served Communities Funding

• Section 9. Data field definitions and financial treatments

  • Removed the following text: 'Data field definitions and financial treatments can be found in this document. headed 'Data field definitions and financial treatments' in pdf versions - please do not copy over content for the time being.'

  • Added the following text: 'The CRN Finance Tool no longer provides the option to select ‘staff’ or ‘non-staff’ when entering data. The system recognises which costs are staff and which are non-staff. When entering staff costs, users must select Band and either WTE or PA.

  • Added Sections 9.1 - 9.12 inclusive

• Section 10. Data Checks (Validation)

  • Removed the following text: 

The CRN Finance Tool has been amended to include additional categorisation to capture the Public Health Prevention Research Funded posts (Local Authority Support Role and the Consultant Role). In 2019/20 this expenditure was reported as an additional allocation to the ‘Core’ budget and categorisation sat within the ‘Core Funding’ category. This funding category will be used to determine underspends against this funding envelope, based on reported expenditure. For Q1 2021/22 the Public Health Prevention Research Funding is now a separate Funding Category and has the same hierarchy as follows:

• • • • • • Funding Category: Public Health Prevention Research Funding

          • Budget Category: LCRN Leadership and Core Business

          • Budget Sub-category: LCRN Leadership

          • Budget Sub-category details: Local Authority Support

The ‘Local Authority Support’ budget sub-category details should include the Local Authority Support Role and the Consultant sessions, reported as two separate lines. A number of data checks have been incorporated into the CRN Finance Tool and are designed to alert LCRNs to potential data entry errors within returns. Some of the checks are held within the data fields structure itself, for example preventing WTE from being entered for a non-staff item. Other checks are carried out in the summary tab when a return is uploaded to the CRN Finance Tool, as noted below. No validation steps are built into the spreadsheet template. The CRN Finance Tool will alert users to any errors in the data by displaying a message on the screen. 

• Host Corporate Support Costs is less than or equal to the lower of 2% or £400k of total funding (excluding top-sliced funding). 

• Overheads at each PO should not exceed 8% of staff costs less top-sliced, Host Corporate Support Costs and Unallocated Funds staff costs. 

• Contingency should be less than 10% of total funding at AFP, 5% at Q1, 2% at Q2 1% at Q3 and 0% at Q4. 

• Added the following text:

A number of data checks have been incorporated into the CRN Finance Tool and are designed to alert LCRNs to potential data entry errors within returns. 

Some of the checks are held within the data fields structure itself, for example preventing WTE from being entered for a non-staff item, as noted in section 8. 

Other checks are carried out in the summary tab when a return is uploaded to the CRN Finance Tool, as noted below. No validation steps are built into the spreadsheet template. The CRN Finance Tool will alert users to any errors in the data by displaying a message on the screen.

• Host Corporate Support Costs is less than or equal to the lower of 2% or £400k of total funding (excluding top-sliced funding).

• Overheads at each PO should not exceed 8% of staff costs less top-sliced, Host Corporate Support Costs and Unallocated Funds staff costs.

• Contingency should be less than 10% of total funding at AFP, 5% at Q1, 2% at Q2 1% at Q3 and 0% at Q4.

• Strategic Funding should include all ring-fenced Targeting Under-Served Communities Funding, and should therefore be at a minimum, 2% of Total Funding

CRNCC's LCRN Finance Team

Email: CRNFinance@nihr.ac.uk

AcoRD: Attributing the cost of health and social care research and development

AFP: Annual Financial Plan

CRN: Clinical Research Network

CRNCC: Clinical Research Network Coordinating Centre

DHSC: The Department of Health and Social Care

GDPR: General Data Protection Regulations

ISHP: Independent Sector Healthcare Provider

LCRN: Local Clinical Research Network

NHSE/I: NHS England and NHS Improvement

NIHR: National Institute for Health and Care Research

ODP: Open Data Platform

PA: Programmed Activity

Q1/2/3/4: Quarter 1/2/3/4

PID: Personal Identifiable Data

PO: Partner Organisation

PPV: Per Participant Value (sometimes referred to as the Per Patient Value)

SoECAT: Schedule of Events Cost Attribution Tool

SOP: Standard Operating Procedure

WTE: Whole Time Equivalent (also known as FTE: Full Time Equivalent)