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Allocation of Movement Budgets

Intro

Movement budgets are for regular costs, not for rebellions or actions. There is a separate process for making requests for a rebellion or action but they all use the same Budget Request form. The movement budget will mainly be Volunteer Living Expenses (VLE) but also funds regular costs such as building rent and rates, software licences, accountancy, training, permanent equipment that will be used for rebellions etc. Movement budgets are agreed at times when fundraising from rebellions and actions are at their most predictable, usually in the month following a major rebellion or action.

Each movement’s budget is usually for a 6 monthly period and is based on the previous 6 month period and on cash flow forecasts. It is finalised early in the first month of the new period. Reps from all circles seeking a budget submit requests for VLE, goods or services with a brief justification, to be evaluated by IBG alongside the requester's previous budget and actual expenditure.

Summary

  1. For a new movement budget, each circle meets to review and agree each VLE claimant's request. See section on VLE further on for more details.
  2. A circle's BH prepares their budget.
  3. The circle's parent circle may review and agree the budget, along with Actions and/or the Hive.
  4. Each BH (or their delegate) completes a Jotform "XR UK Budget Request form". When they click Send, it goes to the IBG mailbox.
  5. IBG members review each request for completeness, accuracy and clarity and may ask clarifying questions from the BH.
  6. IBG reviews all requests together to decide how much each circle gets. The usual approach is for the IBG to split into 3 teams who each reviews 1/3 of the requests, ensuring that no-one reviews a request who has a conflict of interest.
  7. IBG takes advice from Finance on availability of funds and then decides how to allocate funds to each request, based on how well they each meet strategic criteria and value for money in consultation with the Strategy team.
  8. IBG advises all BHs their recommended funding.
  9. For a 3 month review of an existing budget, circles follow the same process except that they only need request budget changes, not their complete budget.
  10. Give feedback to IBG on how this process is working.

XR UK Budget request form (slightly out of date)

The form asks similar questions whether for a movement budget or rebellion.

Using this form streamlines and standardises the request process so the IBG doesn't get too much or too little info and doesn't need to go back to the BH for missing info. The following questions on the proposed form are subject to review.

  1. Name
  2. Role
  3. Your BH if not your role in 2
  4. Circle
  5. Is it for a movement budget or an action/event/rebellion? (if the latter, give name of action)
  6. Lots more TBA

If requesting a movement budget : (slightly out of date)

Items needing to be funded, shown as a spreadsheet, 1 item / row with the following in each column :

  • Is this new funding / extension of existing amount / top up?

  • Description of Goods / Services / Role needing VLE (no names),

  • Purpose

  • Amount

  • Start month

  • End month (state if ongoing)

  • If for VLE, does the recipient also receive VLE from another source?

  • To what extent (High/Medium/Low) does this item support XR's strategy regarding :

    • Critical functionality, either critical goods or services or VLE to support them
    • Substantial mobilisation : helps to grow the movement
    • Fundraising : support members of the Fundraising team and professional fundraisers
    • Cultural influencers : getting a public figure, VIP or person in power to support the movement by what they say or post on social media
    • Make our demands through NVDA

If not requesting a movement budget : (slightly out of date)

  • Describe the activities (max 100 words)
  • Items needing to be funded shown as a spreadsheet, 1 item / row with the following in each column :
  • Purpose
  • Amount
  • Aswers to same questions as in last bullet in 6.2 on by how much this supports XR's strategy.
  • If you are from an Operations sub-circle, has Actions reviewed and approved this request?

How do you plan to self fund? (notes to be added on how to seek help from Fundraising)

If funding an affiliated / sister group, show the advice from Relationships (notes to be added on our policy for funding these groups)

VLE Do not try to give a personal reference for anyone receiving VLE but do describe how essential is the role. The IBG must not evaluate VLE based on named individuals as some may be known to them.

The VLE recipient's circle must have already agreed they are eligible and roughly how much VLE is needed using the Integrated Decision Making process described in XR's constitution. They are eligible if they could not work for XR otherwise and would have to instead seek paid work.

In effect, they are claiming living expenses, not a reward for hours worked or expertise and the definition used is "Payees have been given money according to their need, not according to the time spent doing things with us and not according to the value of the things they did." If this definition is not followed, then HMRC may regard VLE recipients as employed, whereupon XR would be subject to employment law.

State if the VLE is being offered for a role not yet filled and why, i.e. it is speculative in that the status of the role filler is unknown.

State if a VLE recipient is also claiming VLE from another group and how the total VLE was calculated.

The maximum suggested by IBG for 1 month's VLE is £1,600 / person. If VLE is for an unfilled role, the maximum requested should be an average amount and it will be assumed that roles remaining unfilled will balance out those that become filled and will need more than the amount requested.

Claiming VLE

Here are detailed VLE claim procedures issued by Finance. The following is a summary.

There are 2 forms of VLE - payroll VLE and CCFB (Capped Charges For Business). Anyone receiving payroll VLE is placed on XR's payroll, their tax and NI are deducted and they are paid monthly.

CCFB can be claimed if a person is self employed, whereupon they must agree to make their own arrangement to pay tax and NI. HMRC has rules you must follow to ensure you and XR remain compliant. To be eligible for CCFB you must fit 1 of these 2 criteria :

  1. you are registered as self employed with HMRC and any exisitng self employed activities outside of XR are similar to those provided to XR

or :

  1. all of the following apply :

a. you have the right to provide a substitute worker to complete the work specified in the service agreement and

b. you agree to make good any errors or defective work without additional payment and

c. you are insured in respect of potential liabilities arising from the services you provide.

In either case 1 or 2, you must be happy to sign a service agreement

The claimant completes a Jotform and their BH reviews and approves the claim. Payroll VLE claims must be submitted monthly by a deadline so as to be included in the current month's payroll run but CCFB can be clamed at any time by attaching an invoice to the Jotform.

Ad hoc movement budget requests

People's VLE needs may change or further goods or services may be needed during a movement budget peiod. The BH seeks approval by their parent circle and the makes the request to IBG through their IBG rep using the same form. Wherever possible, the request is considered during the 3 month review along with all others. IBG makes a decision based on levels of available funding and other requests being evaluated.

Distribution of budgets

Nations and regions are given a "pot of money" divided into equal amounts initially which they can use for VLE, goods or services without further justfication to IBG. They may decide between themselves to redistribute some of these funds from the pot where some nations or regions need more than others.

If an individual circle finds they are underspending on 1 type of expense during the budget period and need more elsewhere, they can reallocate the budget providing they do not overspend overall. E.g. if travel is low, they could spend more on VLE.

If a budget is not used by the end of the movement budget period, the underspend is returned, not carried forward.

Managing a budget

When movement budgets are agreed, BHs are advised and Finance pays VLE as requests are made and approved by the BHs. BHs must ensure approved VLE and other costs will not exceed their budget.

At the time when the movement budget is approved, those rows in the model which have been agreed are frozen. Anyone modelling the cash flow must take care to protect the approved budget data.

Requests for funding of other movements

There are many different movements with varying degrees by which they echo our principles and values, some being offshoots from XR. The Relationships circle should always advise whether they should be funded and for how much. The principle is that a movement only gets an initial donation to start up or to fund an action and then are expected to self fund.

Review of Movement Budgets

Circles receiving a movement budget or now wishing to receive one should in liaison with IBG run a basic review, to take place after 3 months of a movement budget period. The IBG will decide if any request for more budget can be approved. A more comprehensive review is run after the end of the 6 month period.

Purpose of the review process : seek feedback from all circles, not just those getting budget, and from Finance, to collect views on the process and size of budgets and take appropriate actions, e.g. if fundraising revenue differs from expectations.

Finance presents a report of spend broken down by circle for the period under review.

Compare actual spend against allocated budget, by circle.

Survey all BHs (list from Finance) to ask :

  1. Was the process easy to use?
  2. Did you under spend? (compare with report from Finance)
  3. Do you need more or less? Check if a VLE recipient's circumstances have changed and they are fulfilling their role's mandate.
  4. Anything else?

Get the position from Finance of unrestricted funds as at end of the 3 monthly period.

Decide if any circle gets more budget or less for next 3 months.

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