NEWS

Central Government Finance Conference 2011

This conference took place on 6 December 2011 with high level speakers including Ken Beeton, Richard Douglas, Ian Watmore. The conference room was full with latecomers having to be found seats. This was a highly-regarded conference with 98% of delegates rating the event as either excellent (62%) or good (36%), in the post-conference survey. One delegate kindly gave us feedback that it was “A very good conference indeed and well done to CIPFA for organizing it. The speakers were all good or very good and the topics were highly relevant.”

The scale and pace of change within central government is unprecedented and whilst the government finance professionalism has grown over the last few years we now need cultural change to really see the value the finance profession can add, was the message from Ken Beeton speaking at the conference.

This was reinforced by Richard Douglas with the challenge to finance professionals to achieve transformational change to achieve the Spending Review cuts as he has started to do in his own department, Department of Health. Otherwise the scale of efficiencies required would not be achieved.

Achieving tough efficiency savings is not an option was the message from Ian Watmore and we need to continue along this path of reducing costs. He was pleased with the PAC observations that they had made a good start but this was just the start.

The afternoon sessions looked at how other pan public sector organisations had achieved the spending review cuts including local government (Jane West from Hammersmith and Fulham) and internationally in Ireland (Eoin Dormer) and finally Bob Hogg rounded the day off with an entertaining session on maintaining delivery in times of change. 

A full conference write up is available session-by-session by clicking on the links below.

Keep looking for updates as to the next free central government conference scheduled for w/c 10th September 2012.  Register asap as we were fully booked very quickly!

Welcome and overview of the day
Steve Freer, Chief Executive, CIPFA

The Journey Thus Far
Chair: Ken Beeton, Director, Financial Management & Reporting, HM Treasury

The Future
Richard Douglas, Director General of Polley, Strategy and Finance (Department of Health) and Head of the Government Finance Profession

Efficiency Reform Group
Ian Watmore, Chief Operating Officer, Efficiency Reform
Group, Cabinet Office

Technical Update – Central Government Finance Conference 2011
Manj Kalar, Technical Manager, Central Government and
Paul Mason, Assistant Director, Professional Standards
and Central Government, CIPFA

Facing the Challenges - the view from other sectors, chaired by Dr Valerie Vaughan-Dick, group finance director for department for Transport and chair of the central government panel.

A split session from different speakers on the cuts and the
lessons learned in their areas:

1. The Irish Experience - Eoin Dormer
2. The Local Government Experience - Jane West, A senior finance professional from a leading local authority
3. Macro economics, fiscal positions, global and private sector views - Ian Stewart, Chief Economist, Deloitte LLP

Maintaining Delivery in Times of Change
Bob Hogg Serco

EVENTS

More to follow...