By Nick Mann | 25 March 2013
There has been an ‘awful lot’ of progress in putting finance at the heart of government decision-making, according to the man responsible.
Richard Douglas, head of the Government Finance Profession, told CIPFA's World-Class Performance Symposium that there was plenty of evidence that the Finance Transformation Programme was increasing both the profile and professionalism of finance workers in government.
The Budget showed that under challenging circumstances, finance professionals were ‘managing to deliver, both within the spending controls – and, in a number of cases, quite well below the spending controls – at the same time as improving, or at least maintaining, delivery’, he said.
‘I genuinely think departments are more able to do this than they would have been able to a few years ago because of a better understanding of the importance of good financial management.
‘There’s an awful long way to go but we’ve built firm foundations in the finance profession,’ he said.
