The Finance Advisory Network, now in its sixth year of supporting local government to enhance financial management arrangements now has a Training and Development Forum for Service Managers (TDF-SM). This forum is specifically aimed to enhance financial management skills and competencies of the non-finance professional – heads of service, service managers and their operational staff.

Finance training and development for non-finance professionals is under developed and under resourced across many local authorities, yet skilled managers are vital to the success of these organisations. The TDF-SM aims to provide a key element in moving that agenda forward.

The Forum is designed for those people who work outside of the finance function and who have responsibility for delivering effective financial management. It recognises the significant role that financial management plays within effective resource and performance management. It will address the skills and competency gaps of service managers and work to improve their finance based skills and knowledge. We strongly believe this new subscription based Forum will add significant new value to the existing financial management arrangements within local authorities.

The CIPFA FAN Training and Development Forum will operate on a participative membership basis.

To enhance and support an individual local authority’s own arrangements for devolved financial management, we are developing a new specialist forum aimed at supporting your service managers.

The forum will be guided by the following objectives:

• to develop the financial management skills of non-finance managers and to build the internal financial management capacity of local authorities who participate in the service;
• to support service managers in discharging their financial management responsibilities effectively;
• to assist service managers in identifying the necessary skills and competencies to deliver successful outcomes in financial management; and
• to provide a dynamic service that remains relevant and timely to the latest legislative and regulatory pressures facing service managers.

The forum will provide support through a mixture of approaches. We will:

• provide relevant support across the organisation, not just to one group of managers;
• be based around the financial management skills and competencies required by service managers;
• refresh all existing guidance periodically;
• provide additional guidance relevant to latest agendas on a regular basis; and
• provide open course programmes delivered regionally to support the further enhancement of key skills and competencies.

1. The generic framework can be applied directly or with a small amount of tailoring – this will save our subscribers a significant amount of time in developing it from first principles themselves.
2. Your managers will have their financial skills and competencies enhanced through our online learning materials. Their abilities in managing budgets will improve.
3. Your managers will have their knowledge and understanding of the practical implications of the latest specific initiatives enhanced – they will be better able to respond with you to these new agendas.
4. Managers will learn of practical tips and techniques for more effective financial management relevant to their services from peers within the Forum.

If you would like to find out more information on the benefits of joining the FAN TDF-SM please contact Rupert Dewhirst on 01904 675589 or by email at Rupert.Dewhirst@ipf.co.uk. Or you can contact our associate lead for this new service Liz Frawley on 0779 0500 460 or email her at Liz.Frawley@ipf.co.uk.