By Tom Forrest | 28 June 2013
A review of financial management across Whitehall has been commissioned by the chancellor and chief secretary to the Treasury and will report to them by the end of this year.
George Osborne and Danny Alexander announced the review yesterday. It follows a critical report earlier this month from the National Audit Office, which called for stronger financial management to enable departments to speed up service restructuring.
Alexander has published a document, Strengthening financial management capability in government, to explain the review’s remit. In the document’s foreword, he writes: ‘We need a continual improvement in control over public spending and financial capability in government.
‘What we need most is stronger, more effective leadership from the centre to support and strengthen the finance profession across Whitehall for the challenging period ahead.’
Richard Douglas, head of the Government Finance Profession, and Sharon White, director general for public spending at the Treasury, will jointly lead the review. Lord Sainsbury will act as an external advisor.
The review will examine how the Treasury can: improve the quality and consistency of management information flows to departments; strengthen the role of the head of the Government Finance Profession; ensure appropriate levels of delegation and approvals; and create a more coherent project appraisal process.
‘We need to complement, rather than replace, the long-established accounting officer regime, where Parliament can call official heads of department to account for the stewardship of resources under their control,’ Alexander writes in the foreword.
‘There remains scope for us to modernise our approach and sharpen our game in government, learning from the operation of the best strategic central finance functions in the corporate world.’
