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| We all want to build one but how? |
Some very interesting perspectives on the modern finance function which are applicable over a wide range of sectors. It is critical that budgets are known to key decision makers and service delivery personnel well in advance and that the budgets fit into a realistic medium term financial planning envelope. Budgets must also be wisely spent in those areas of policy that will make a real difference to people’s lives and that is where the marriage between good financial management and the delivery of effective policy outcomes needs to be at its strongest.
We all need to be excellent financial managers and we also need to ensure that we do add value to the operation and delivery of key services to the population. That will involve us providing excellent advice and support to our colleagues, empathising with their challenges and providing them with innovative solutions to the really difficult choices they currently face.
We must however be honest with ourselves as well. Have traditional finance functions always delivered advice,support and understanding in the best way possible to key support delivery units? Often resourcing reports for monthly monitoring are presented in ways which are more convenient to the finance person rather than the person responsible for the delivery of a key service. We must move away from that particular mindset and embrace the business partnering\innovation role with gusto. This is not easy for everyone to master.
In my role working with finance practitioners for many years, they frequently are more at home with the technical aspects of finance and much less so with the business partnering\innovation dimension. This must change. If we were to ask financial managers which element posed the greatest financial management challenge we all will face in the coming months and years it certainly will not be IFRS, collection fund accounting or even zero based budgeting.
The high leverage of UK businesses, the state and individuals is a huge problem but perhaps what tops all of these are the financial and policy issues we will face as a society resulting from an ageing population. In 2011 in the UK there were 9.75m people aged 65 and over and 3m people aged over 80. In 2031 this is predicted to rise to 15.25m people over 65 and 5m people over 80. The modern finance function will need to be geared to addressing the financial and policy fall out from issues like social care yet perhaps within our existing mindsets, financial management is frequently more strongly linked with the ideas of stewardship and safeguarding rather than business partnering and innovation.
Trying to convince some finance practitioners that issues like social care and its future consequences are more financially real to society than the technical accounting aspects so many of us know and love so well, is often a struggle in itself. The future of the public and not for profit sector will look very different in the medium term with the proliferation of smaller units like CCG’s, academies and trusts. As expert financial managers we will need to demonstrate to these units that we can make a real difference to their performance and their impact on society. If we cannot do this then why will these newly structured units engage with us? Financial managers will need to respond in new ways and add value to society.
We must ask ourselves honestly as individuals how will we ensure that we will be in a position to transform ourselves to demonstrate our value not only to ourselves but to society as a whole. -
