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Publications

For further details on the publications listed below or to purchase online, please click on the title or go to the CIPFA Shop.

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Managing Cash
This publication looks at the central role that cash plays in the conduct of an organisation’s business. It examines how organisations use cash, and how cash can be made to work for them; in other words, how cash can be managed effectively. It is designed to help those directly responsible for cash management, and also members of boards and top management teams who may have little experience of this essential topic.

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Option Appraisal: A Practical Guide for Public Service Organisations
This guide is for those who need practical guidance on making difficult decisions. It is designed to be applicable to a wide range of situations, not just the capital investment decisions that are the focus of much option appraisal guidance. It gives advice on the types of decision that require an option appraisal and on how the process should be initiated and undertaken.

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Counting Costs: Understanding and Using Costing Information to Make Better Decisions
Over the next few years leaders of organisations face hard choices about what services will be provided and how to fund them. Right now the focus is on reducing costs. Managers must increase the drive for greater efficiency and productivity, and need to understand how their costs behave so that they can plan and control their spending. Costing is an important discipline in all organisations – done well it provides powerful insights to support decision taking.

In addition, two short briefing notes are included in the publication:

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The Performance Pulse: Managing Performance to Achieve Strategic Outcomes
This guide is intended to help senior decision makers and managers across the public services to design or redesign their organisations’ performance management systems.

Public sector organisations have grown used to externally imposed requirements to report information on their costs and activities, but this is set to change. The policy and practice of national external performance measurement is being rolled back. The timely publication of this guide comes as greater freedoms for public bodies to develop and devise performance information and measures to suit them, and to use their performance management systems for improvement, come on stream.

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Better Benchmarking for High Performance
Not only does benchmarking tell an organisation how it performs, but also how much better it should perform. As the squeeze on the public finances tightens, money must go further. For this reason Better Benchmarking for High Performance should be read by top managers, service managers and finance professionals.

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The CIPFA FM Model: Assessment of Financial Management in Public Service Organisations – Statements of Good Practice, Version 3 (2010)
Good financial management is a key corporate discipline and a feature of successful organisations. Applying the CIPFA FM Model will help ensure robust financial management arrangements, shaped to support your organisation in challenging times ahead.

This is the third iteration of the CIPFA FM Model and it has been tailored for the harsher financial climate in which the public services must now operate. There is a clear emphasis on risk management through change, transactional efficiency and productivity, collaborative working, the commercial acumen of finance staff – and, following the Iceland banking trauma – on treasury management, with a relentless focus on priorities, costs and income to drive out further savings both within and between organisations.

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Evaluating Partnerships: An Overview and Compendium of Approaches (2009)
Partnership working is now an established feature for the delivery of public services, with public bodies working together and also with business, community groups and the voluntary sector. In this report, evaluation is discussed under three aspects – behaviours, performance and value for money. It will help partnerships and their parent partners develop evaluation approaches and methods to inform future development and improvement. Click here for more details.

A Practical Guide for Local Authorities on Income Generation (Fully Revised Second Edition 2008)
CIPFA’s new and extended income guide allows authorities to make the most of this funding source. Packed with information it can save authorities time, effort and consultancy costs. It is essential reading to ensure the 2008 Audit Commission National Report Positively Charged is implemented at the local level.

Further details about the guide can be found on the CIPFA shop.

Improving Financial Literacy in Public Service Organisations: A Good Practice Resource Pack (2008)

Board members and business managers carry big responsibilities for the health and effectiveness of the organisations they lead and manage. Squeezing out the maximum quantity and quality of public services from the finance they have at their disposal is what value for money is all about.

This timely resource pack is in two parts, one for the Board, or its equivalent, and another for Managers. It is presented as both a hard copy book and a fully searchable CD-ROM. This CD-ROM can be networked so that the principles can be rolled out throughout the purchasing organisation.

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Shared Services: Where Now? A Guide to Public Sector Implementation (2008)

Written by Chris Brown, Ben Paul and Rajni Dev, three leading shared service experts from PricewaterhouseCoopers' Government and Public Sector Practice, the guide sets out evolving best practice and the lessons learnt from real experience in developing and delivering shared services. The publication is the essential toolkit for use by leaders and practitioners responsible for turning the shared services concept into a practical and efficient reality.

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Improving Budgeting: Modernising the Cycle (2008)

The financial environment is now moving towards medium-term three-year settlements for public services, with pressure for faster accounts closure, and a greater emphasis on efficiency, performance outcomes and value for money. The budget and reporting cycle needs to adapt as a tool to support these developments.

Improving Budgeting: Modernising the Cycle gives you practical ways to improve this key financial process. Existing good practice and fresh approaches to budgeting are explained along with the sensible steps that your organisation can take.

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Balance Sheet Management in the Public Services: A Framework for Good Practice (2006)

Effective balance sheet management can generate real savings for organisations. These savings can be redeployed to help in the achievement of key delivery objectives. Effective balance sheet management can also assist in developing stronger communications between finance and operational teams and can enhance decision-making by ensuring that the full financial implications of decisions are taken into account.

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Integrated Planning: An Overview of Approaches (2006)

This expert guide is intended to provide an overview of how an integrated planning process can be approached and made to work more effectively for planners, finance, and operational staff who play a part in it. The first section examines the overall process and includes a summary for senior management and board members about their part in setting the direction and deciding on alternative options when finalising the overall plan. The second section looks at elements of the cycle and suggests techniques and approaches for better planning outcomes. The guide also offers brief summaries of the techniques and approaches involved in planning and links to sources for further details and advice.

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Sustainability: A Reporting Framework for the Public Services (2006)

There is high level commitment to sustainable development. In March 2005 the UK Government published Securing the Future - delivering UK sustainable development strategy, and One Future - Different Paths, the UK's shared framework for sustainable development. Public sector organisations have a common goal to deliver quality of life. Increasingly, sustainability, which encompasses ensuring quality of life for all over the long-term, is embedded in statutory requirements.

CIPFA's framework, developed in conjunction with Forum for the Future, enables UK public sector organisations to put sustainability reporting into practice. This framework takes you through the practical steps you need to make to deliver a meaningful sustainability report.

The Panel's Back Catalogue
For further details click on the relevant title.

Achieving an Information Strategy in Practice

Appointing and Managing Advisors and Providers of Professional Services

A Question of Costs: How Costs Behave and How to Control Them

Competing Demands - Competition in the Public Services

Management Information: Can you Manage without it? A Guide to Developing Management Information

Risk Management in the Public Services

Throwing Down the Gauntlet - A Practitioner's Guide to Challenging Effectively