05 December 2003
Chancellor Gordon Brown has unveiled plans to give senior finance professionals more say in the management of Whitehall departments in an attempt to help them improve their financial performance.
A Treasury statement, released on December 1, outlined plans to replace Whitehall's principal finance officers, who carry limited influence over the strategic management of policy, with powerful new finance directors who will also be responsible for the 'full range of financial functions in each department'.
The changes will be implemented immediately. They allow the new directors to sit on departmental boards – which determine strategic policy management – and form part of civil service chief Sir Andrew Turnbull's wider plan to inject more professionalism into Whitehall's decision-making.
Turnbull's mini-revolution also includes overhauls of human resources and IT structures. The new arrangements require finance directors to be professionally qualified, or to have a team of professionally qualified managers 'able to operate in their own right at the most senior levels of their departments'.
A Treasury spokesman told Public Finance: 'These changes reflect the growing importance of effective accounting.' Finance experts had previously sat on management boards, but they will now be 'even more involved in strategic policy formulation'.
In the wake of some embarrassing financial decision- making by departments, including projects whose costs have soared, the general view is that this can only be a good thing.
CIPFA chief executive Steve Freer said: 'It's good to see government departments developing a clear game plan for the kind of finance function they want in future.
'Finance professionals can play such a vitally important and positive role in organisations, especially when there are significant pressures to manage change and improve performance.'
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