23 January 2009
A new finance director at the Ministry of Justice talks about promotions, PhDs, and being named the Personality of the Year
Rearranging the Whitehall furniture seems to be one of the government’s favourite pastimes. Departments are split up, merged or given new responsibilities seemingly on a prime ministerial whim – and the civil service is expected to glide smoothly on.
Valerie Vaughan-Dick is one of those professionals whose hard work behind the scenes makes such change appear effortless to the outside observer.
The energetic and enthusiastic finance director of the Ministry of Justice’s Access to Justice directorate is keen to talk about how the new ministry’s management team has found its feet and synthesised its different elements and cultures.
‘It was really important that, as a new organisation, they said, “What are we really here for?” and started to look at that, to focus service delivery towards departmental strategic objectives and start to say – and it hasn’t totally happened yet but we’re getting there – “What are the things we should stop doing or do in a different way?” Those are fundamental questions.’
The Ministry of Justice was set up in the 2007 Whitehall reorganisation that heralded Gordon Brown’s premiership. Keeping the core duties of the old Department for Constitutional Affairs, the MoJ also took on responsibility for the prison and probation services from the Home Office and now has oversight of the administration of almost all aspects of justice.
As part of her role, Vaughan-Dick oversees £4bn of public money, which funds 31 different kinds of bodies or ‘work streams’. She says her directorate resembles a ‘holding company’, with a variety of bodies under its wing, including the Legal Services Commission, which runs the legal aid service in England and Wales, the Tribunals Service, the Courts Service and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.
The CIPFA-qualified accountant joined the MoJ in July 2008 from the Tribunals Service, where she was head of finance and resources. Peter Handcock, who was the chief executive of the service and is now director general of Access to Justice, says Vaughan-Dick was the first person he thought of when he needed someone to lead on finance in the new directorate.
‘Valerie is a great person to have on the team,’ he says. ‘She’s a hugely energetic and focused person, always full of ideas and action. She’s a great colleague and great fun as well, which is a rare quality.’
Vaughan-Dick’s love of fun was recently recognised when she picked up the award for personality of the year at the 2008 Treasury ‘Oscars’, the Government Finance Profession Awards.
But it is hard to imagine that she indulged in any Kate Winslet-style histrionics. Vaughan-Dick is nothing if not professional and is quick to point out that the MoJ was successful in three of the 12 available categories, testament to the hard work that has been put in by the finance professionals in the new department.
South London ‘born and bred’, Vaughan-Dick read economics at City University before taking a masters in management science at Imperial College London – ‘that was tough’ – after which she joined the newly formed National Audit Office in 1983.
‘If you go to Imperial, people go into the private sector and get lots of money, and I do like money,’ she jokes.
‘But I was very much motivated by some of the injustices that were happening in our society and I wanted to do something that made me feel that when I get up I really wanted to do that job… I wanted big political issues.’
She praises the quality of training and variety of work offered by the NAO, which paved the way for a series of jobs at the Housing Corporation, housing associations and the 4Ps where she became something of an expert on the Private Finance Initiative.
‘You do start to understand private sector and commercial principles because you start to know what will interest the market.’
Vaughan-Dick is someone who likes to keep learning. Last year she finished her PhD, which examined how well English local authorities had implemented e-government. It took her six years of evening work to complete.
‘It was good because I had something outside of work for myself,’ she says. ‘I found it immensely interesting – but many people wouldn’t.’
Despite the local government focus of her research, the lessons that emerged from it have proved invaluable in her current job. What came out was not so much about local government but about how organisations manage change, she says.
‘To get change, you have to communicate that there’s going to be change… that there are going to be benefits but also some rough times. More important [is to] keep on communicating… All of that is really important in this job, which is about immense change.’
The shift up from the Tribunals Service, where the budget was a mere £300m, to Access to Justice is ‘very, very challenging’, she says. She chairs the panel of all the finance directors of the bodies that sit under Access to Justice’s umbrella. ‘We talk about financial issues, financial pressure, financial good practice. I like that way of working.
‘Finance professionals are there for a purpose. We’re there to enable excellent or improved service delivery and we’ve got a challenge [at the MoJ] in that we’ve got a lot of organisations coming together.
‘You’ve got this new organisation that’s very diverse with different cultures. No one is saying you’ve got to have this one culture because that would be impossible, but the basic principles of openness and respect are important.’
Respect for diversity is vital throughout the civil service, Vaughan-Dick says. She believes that neither her gender nor her race has ever prevented her from getting top jobs – ‘maybe I’m just too vocal’ – but says it is important that difference is recognised.
‘There’s no point pretending there isn’t that difference… Years ago there was this issue of “You’re one of us”, but no, I’m not. I’m different to you and there are reasons for that.
‘They’re historical, socio-economic and political and I want that recognised, rather than pretending we’re all the same,’ she says.
With two teenage children (a 19-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter), Vaughan-Dick has little time for relaxation. But she makes sure she has time for her weekly exercise class set to Soca music.
She also has a keen interest in history, particularly black history and politics – she has recently been enjoying new US president Barack Obama’s autobiographical memoir Dreams from my father.
‘If you want to know where you’re going and how you should do things, you should learn from history. A tree without its roots is not going to grow.’
