Is it mandatory to allocate cost centres below BCU level?
The Home Office position is that this is not mandatory for ABC in 03/04 as 03/04 is a learning and development year. For 04/05 it will be mandatory that cost centres accurately reflect organisational structure and sources of activity data. Thus if a BCU has more that one discrete unit, we would expect to see more that one cost centre per BCU. For example, if a BCU is split by Proactive, Response, CID and Support units, then there should be four cost centres to reflect this structure. If ABC is to form the basis of future statutory accounts (currently being explored), CIPFA requires that cost centres are split to reflect the organisational structure, as described above. It is also crucial that you have this level of information to support your local needs in analysing the cost of operational units.
