ECH22075 - Contract Settlements: The Strategic Accounting Framework Environment: SAFE - General

The Strategic Accounting Framework Environment (SAFE) provides IT support for the collection and accounting of miscellaneous charges including Class 6 settlement charges. Each Business Stream has a range of SAFE roles and these are allocated to “SAFE nominees” as appropriate.

Once an offer has been accepted by the appropriate senior manager ( ECH21550) you must ask the SAFE nominee, using the Class 6 Contract Settlement SAFE stencil (available in Word SEES), to create a charge on SAFE to account for the offer payable under the contract settlement.

(if the offer has been accepted by the Authorising Officer you should date and issue the acceptance letter already prepared for you)

The offer is shown on Form 94EC Part 3. All payments on account are now held on SAFE ( ECH22076) which, if the charge is due within 30 days, will automatically deduct them from the offer to arrive at the “Amount to be demanded” on the Notice to pay.

Note: Payments on Account of charges due more than 30 days hence will not be reflected in the amount to be demanded on the notice to pay.

A SAFE stencil must be fully completed in all cases to enable the SAFE nominee to create the charge. In particular you must

• provide a breakdown of the settlement into the SAFE duty types for accounting purposes
• list the payments on account and any repayments available for set off
• provide a breakdown of the amount and due date for all instalments payments
• confirm the due date for payment.

Before issuing the stencil you must

• allow sufficient time for all payments on account and set offs to reach SAFE to ensure the notice to pay (issued centrally by SAFE ) is in the correct amount.

When the SAFE nominee has confirmed that the charge has been raised you must:

• clear the case on ECS using the SAFE reference number provided by the SAFE nominee.
• retain the stencil in the enquiry papers with the letter of offer and form 94EC

If the stencil details (employer/contractor address/ payments on account/amounts to be set off) do not match the information held on SAFE it will be returned to you within 3 days, by the SAFE nominee, stating the reasons why it has not been actioned.

Points for the SAFE Nominee to Note

• Organisation Unit Identifier (OUID)

SAFE uses the Organisation Unit Identifier (OUID) of the SAFE Nominee to determine the name, address and telephone number to include on SAFE Outputs.

Where the caseworker and the SAFE Nominee do not work in the same OUID the SAFE Nominee must select the OUID for the caseworker from the “Alt Office” menu.

• Identifying the Caseworker

To enable Debt Management (DMB) and the SAFE team to identify the caseworker in case they need to contact them the SAFE nominee must enter the caseworker’s Pay Identification Number (PID) in the “Local ref” field on SAFE.