A new process was introduced for costing and approving consultancy work (E code projects) in March 2022.
It is not currently possible to fully utilise Worktribe for costing, pricing and approving consultancy projects. RGO does not handle consultancy applications or post award management and only R and GR coded project costings are able to be workflowed through Worktribe to Agresso. As a result, Departments had developed their own consultancy processes and this had resulted in large variation in approaches. The new process aims to harmonise these approaches and will produce a number of benefits, including:
Recording HoD approval in Worktribe, giving clear visibility of sign off to RKEC
Integrating the costing and pricing record with requests for contracts, to provide a single point of reference for consultancy activity
Ensuring accurate fEC costings are consistently produced to inform pricing decisions
Enabling risk and ethics checks to be completed via the existing forms
Enable simpler and more accurate reporting on consultancy.
This process improvement has been approved by the Worktribe Stakeholder Group and the Contracts Operations Group as an interim solution which makes use of the tools we have in a pragmatic way until such a time as we have a more complete solution. It does not constitute a change of policy and you should continue to refer to the institutional guidance on the university web pages to inform your pricing decisions.
RGO will not be involved in setting up Agresso codes or budgets for consultancy and you should continue to follow your standard processes via department Management Accountants for this. The University’s definition of consultancy is 'work undertaken which relies on a member of staff's academic expertise such as advice to industry or government departments'. This could include 'offering specialist opinion, advising on technical issues, or solving problems for firms'. There can be a fine line between consultancy, research, and research-related projects. If you're unsure what your project should be classed as, please check the Frascati Definition of research, or ask Research Support for advice.
Research Support (environment-research@york.ac.uk) are the first point of contact if you wish to undertake consultancy, and will guide you through the internal process.
Types of Consultancy
Consultancy can be undertaken via the University as a staff member or via private consultancy in your own time. Both routes need the permission of the Head of the Department. The University has provided guidance and useful flowcharts to help you work out which route is best for you.
University Consultancy
- As a Department, we charge 120% fEC for consultancy (i.e. higher than the cost of the work)
- If you are doing consultancy for a charity you can request permission from the Head of Department to charge 100% fEC (the full cost of the work)
- Consultancy is often VAT-able and you need to check whether 20% VAT should be added to any quotes; the VAT team can advise on this. You should make clear whether the cost is inclusive or exclusive of VAT in communications with the funder
- Consultancy costs need to be approved and contracts need to be in place before undertaking the work; please allow time for this.
Costing University Consultancy
We cost consultancy on Worktribe - our research costing system - and put it through Head of Department approvals. However, it is not possible to use Worktribe in the same way that we use it for research and research-related projects. The management of the consultancy project - requesting contracts and workorders, invoicing etc. - is done within the Department.
Please refer to the simple guidance on the Research Systems Support Hub wiki pages when costing consultancy; in E&G we would usually use costing Option 1. Research Support (environment-research@york.ac.uk) are happy to cost this for you and advise on the processwill need to edit the Worktribe template for you to make the Price to Funder reflect 120% fEC.