The Financial Services section at Catholic Education Services (CES) provides support to Catholic Education across the diocese in three main areas:

• Administering the budget of Catholic Education Services
• Providing support to Principals, Primary Administration Officers and Secondary Business Managers in the area of finance and administration
• Satisfying accountability requirements of State and Federal Governments and internal bodies.

Administering the budget of CES involves the system level budget of the 18 system primary schools. Financial Services administers the State and Federal Recurrent Grants on behalf of these schools. From this income the salary and wages of staff are paid, along with other system wide expenses such as copyright, levies to other bodies and so on. The 18 system primary schools operate as a system where income is “pooled” as it provides a method of cross subsidisation and support for member schools. Operating as a system ensures all primary schools, regardless of size, are financially viable.

The budget of CES also involves monitoring the programmes and departments that exist within CES. Financial Services is able to record income and expenditure of these programmes against the programme to ensure the cost of individual programmes can be monitored and reported.

Support to Principals, Primary Administration Officers and Secondary Business Managers is provided in a variety of ways by Financial Services including supporting of administration software, budget development and assistance and liaison with Catholic Church Development Fund (CCDF), Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) and other bodies.

External accountability is required to the main funding partners of Catholic Education in the Diocese of Cairns; the State and Federal Governments. State and Federal Governments provide recurrent grants on a per student basis. One of the conditions of accepting recurrent grants is completion of accountability requirements. Financial Services is responsible for completion of accountability requirements to both levels of government. The third major source of funding for Catholic Education after Government is income from parents (via school fees) and other private sources. Internal accountability to parents, schools and school communities and the Board of Governance (Education) and Diocesan Finance Council is co-ordinated and completed by Financial Services.

GST information package for schools

The Queensland Catholic Education Commission (QCEC) together with other state/territory Catholic Education authorities have negotiated with accounting firm, William Buck Business Advisors & Chartered Accountants for every Catholic school in Australia to have access to William Buck’s online GST manual.

In addition to the manual, schools have access to a question and answers segment and a monthly newsletter on relevant issues.

Schools may access the GST manual and information package by visiting http://www.williambuck.com.au/qcec/login.html