The requirement outlines how academic staff time should be recorded where COVID-19 has affected how the time has been utilised. Extracts of the requirement are below along with further explanation of the action required:
‘Where academic staff have been furloughed for a period of time, the time should not be adjusted away from Teaching, Research or Other, but should be separately reported under the relevant TRAC category(ies) in the TRAC return.’
The principle for this requirement is the same as above. The time of academic staff that have been furloughed for periods of time should be categorised under Teaching, Research and/or Other as it would in a ‘more normal’ year that has not been affected by COVID-19. This is to prevent any inappropriate impacts on the Research charge-out rates. However, the TRAC return needs to illustrate the impact of COVID-19 for this issue, so the TRAC return will require additional analysis of the income and costs included in Teaching, Research and/or Other that relate to this issue to enable the results to be interpreted.
Information on academic staff furloughed and for what period of time should be available within the finance department as a claim will have been made to the job retention scheme for these staff.
‘Where it has not been possible to undertake any activity, this time should be recorded and separately analysed under the TRAC activity categories in the TRAC return.’
For the time of academic staff that has been affected by COVID-19, this should be categorised under Teaching, Research and/or Other as it would in a ‘more normal’ year that has not been affected by COVID-19 disruptions. This is to prevent any inappropriate impacts on the Research charge-out rates. However, the TRAC return needs to illustrate the impact that COVID-19 has had on the costs of institutions, so the TRAC return will require additional analysis of the costs included in Teaching, Research and/or Other that relate to this issue to enable the results to be interpreted. To obtain this information about these impacts it will be necessary to interact with Heads of Department or equivalent to obtain estimates of the amount/ proportion of academic staff time affected to enable the supplementary analysis to be completed.
There will be a supplementary worksheet in the TRAC return to collect the additional analysis outlined above.