Corporate report

Government Finance Function Strategy 2022-25

Updated 13 June 2022

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

Who we are

Those of us who work in the Civil Service understand it as a collection of people, teams and networks striving to serve the whole country better. The Government Finance Function is one such network, bringing together everyone who works in finance, across every department and every public body.

We are a diverse community of over 10,000 people, spread right across the UK, with some overseas, and three-quarters are based outside of London. The function brings together a range of disciplines and expertise, including technical accountants, business partners, planning and performance leads, risk managers, internal auditors and spending policy teams.

We are brought together by our shared purpose: to put finance at the heart of decision-making in order to deliver better value for money and strengthen public trust.

Leading the functional agenda

The Government Finance Function is integral to the delivery of public services and sound public finances. Close links with the other government functions are vital for effective delivery. Operating at the centre of every organisation, finance teams are uniquely placed to invite expertise from across the functions to develop more joined-up and robust solutions to the challenges facing government.

Collaborative delivery

The Government Finance Function maintains a lean co-delivery model. A small central team brings financial experts together from across government to build our strategic enablers, the shared guidance, tools, and initiatives which support better financial management in government. This model is not only more efficient, but it also produces better results by delivering more relevant policies and tools, enabling the function to quickly respond to changing organisational and government priorities.

Our delivery model requires wide engagement of the whole Government Finance Function in order to deliver our strategy and drive improvements in financial management.

We want the finance function to be an inclusive and welcoming community, encouraging the full participation of everyone involved in managing public money, not just those based in the central finance directorates.

Our objectives and priorities

Our vision

Finance teams sit at the centre of government organisations, but we must earn our place at the heart of decision-making. Providing expert financial advice is key to this and depends on our specialist capability, the tools we use, and the underlying data we manage. To be truly impactful finance teams require strong underlying relationships with key stakeholders and the ability to use data to build a compelling narrative that addresses strategic objectives and priorities.

When finance is at the heart of decision-making, we support delivery of better outcomes for citizens by ensuring public funds are only committed once comprehensive appraisals have been conducted and value for money demonstrated. Equally important is the ongoing monitoring and support which enables senior decision-makers to manage risks and performance, and to adapt to changing environments and demands.

When finance is at the heart of decision-making, we build trust with our partners and with citizens. We do this by supporting Accounting Officers to manage public funds in line with their fiduciary duties and by ensuring transactions are carried out efficiently, recorded appropriately, and presented truthfully and fairly in audited reports.

Our new strategy builds on our achievements from previous government strategies: the 2011 Finance Transformation Programme, the 2013 Financial Management Review and the 2019 Government Finance Function Strategy. What was relevant then is, for the most part, still relevant now, which is why there is considerable continuity with our 2019 strategy in terms of our vision, objectives, and ambitions. Although we are committed to maintaining and strengthening many of the outputs from these programmes such as the Government Finance Academy, our new strategy also makes fresh, actionable commitments for further development of the Government Finance Function to ensure we are meeting the demands of today and building resilience for the future.

To support the delivery of our strategy, we have developed six objectives that are critical to our success. Our objectives and priorities are listed below:

1. Finance fundamentals

Efficient transaction processing, robust data, timely and accurate reporting, and effective management of operational risk

Our priorities in this area are:

• strengthening and embedding the Government Finance Standard and the GFF Performance Framework to identify areas of strength, share best practice, and establish opportunities for continuous improvement across the function
• improving the timeliness and quality of financial reporting, laying audited Annual Report and Accounts before the Summer Parliamentary Recess
• ensuring best practice in management assurance arrangements over the Control Framework across all organisations
• introducing new sustainability reporting disclosures to enable greater control and better management of the use of natural resources

2. People and capability

Great people, in the right roles, with the right skills for today and for the future

Our priorities in this area are:

• embedding the Finance Career Framework across all government organisations in development and recruitment; and implementing the Skills Capture Tool to help understand skills and capability needs and support workforce planning
• developing a central attraction and recruitment offer to market a career in government finance and bring in specialist skills and diverse talent to support government objectives
• active talent management to develop a diverse pipeline of talented finance staff for future SCS roles
• ensure our Finance Career Framework and Government Finance Academy offer is future-focused, meeting the needs both of today and tomorrow, building Finance Skills for the Future

3. Leading practice

Cross-government data standards and process designs that enable government to be more efficient and responsive

Our priorities in this area are:

• drive greater join-up and interoperability between Finance, HR & Commercial functions creating a single blueprint of leading practice across departments and the wider Civil Service in a new digital repository for all to access
• delivering real time comparable insights about how functional and back-office services perform across Finance, HR and Commercial processes
• enabling key efficiencies from shared services consolidation as part of the Shared Services Strategy for Government as departments continuously adopt and converge to the global functional design
• leveraging new technology to enable more efficient and higher quality financial services across government

4. Insight

Impactful analysis, underpinned by robust data and supported by visualisation tools that help tell the story

Our priorities in this area are:

• transform the government’s insight capability by increasing usage and understanding of cutting-edge analytical tools, through secondments, case studies, and direct central support for high-priority areas, this is also enabled by clear and consistent finance process data architecture and governance, including definitions and standards for recording, reporting, and sharing data within organisations and across government
• develop benchmarks for common areas of spend and enable effective benchmarking within departments and across government, supporting efficiency and productivity improvements and informing resource prioritisation choices
• standardise ‘core’ management information reporting, across central government departments to make monthly board pack reporting core consistent, comparable, and more easily understood across central government
• to automate the collection and distribution of finance data via OSCAR II and enable users to generate analytical insights from their inputted data

5. Diversity, wellbeing, and community

A collaborative and inclusive culture that values diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences

Our priorities in this area are:

• developing and embedding functional Diversity and Inclusion Standards to increase representation within the finance workforce
• encouraging attraction and retention of diverse talent through targeted talent interventions and fair and inclusive recruitment processes
• enhancing the sense of community by supporting our governance and cross-government communities and networks, including Regional Finance Networks to enable collaboration and ensure the talent and experience of the whole function feeds into our collective knowledge
• engaging everyone in the Function, including those in Arms’ Length Bodies through our OneFinance platform, and through a programme of online and hybrid events

6. Planning, risk, and performance

Every government organisation focussed on delivering outcomes and managing risk, to deliver greater public value

Our priorities in this area are:

• embed performance reporting so that organisations can effectively measure impact and track performance against their priority outcomes and identify where interventions are required to improve delivery
• drive the quality of forecasts to facilitate better planning across government and reduce the costs associated with under and over-spends
• strengthen and enhance risk management across government to support successful delivery in an uncertain environment
• promote a greater emphasis on what works by routinely building quality evaluations into delivery planning and creating a strong evidence base for better decision-making
• incentivise cross-government collaboration and innovative ways of working through the Shared Outcomes Fund (SOF), and by scaling up SOF pilots where the evaluation shows the solutions work

Driving Efficiency Across Government

The Government Finance Function provides the infrastructure to control public spend and drive continuous cost efficiency across government. The Government Finance Function Strategy supports finance teams, and everyone involved in the management of public funds to be more effective in driving efficiency. In doing so, we support HM Treasury’s Priority Outcome 1: “Place the public finances on a sustainable footing by controlling public spending and designing sustainable taxes.”

The Government Finance Function drives efficiency by:

1. Establishing accountability for financial management at all levels
2. Enabling efficiency by providing tools, guidance and support which enable people to implement change in their business area
3. Organising ourselves efficiently to provide financial management to government in the most efficient way possible.

1. Establishing accountability

Budget Holders are officials who directly control teams, grants, and contracts on behalf of government, and are delegated budget in order to meet deliver their responsibilities. Due to their direct control and specialist knowledge of their business area, they are best placed to improve performance in their area of responsibility and drive efficiency from their delegated budgets.

But to drive business change, accountability needs to be clear. Financial reporting establishes accountability at all levels: reporting the spend of teams, directorates, groups, and departments. It enables financial control and incentivises more efficient business.

Managing Public Money sets out the fiduciary duties of those handling public resources to work to high standards of probity. At the top level, Departmental Accounting Officers are accountable to Parliament and held to account by the Public Accounts Committee. Finance Directors are responsible for the process of delegating budgets and accountability from Accounting Officers to Budget Holders; and for supporting budget holders at all levels with their financial management responsibilities.

There is also a ‘dotted line’ management arrangement between the ‘Director General Public Spending and Finance’ and Departmental Finance Directors and Chief Financial Officers. At departmental end of year financial assessments, the ‘DG Public Spending and Finance’ ensures finance leaders are implementing financial management and control to the standards expected by Treasury and Parliament.

The Government Finance Function will improve accountability through:

• strengthening and embedding the Government Finance Standard and the GFF Performance Framework to identify areas of strength and opportunities for continuous improvement across the function
• improving the timeliness and quality of financial reporting, laying audited Annual Report and Accounts before the Summer Parliamentary Recess
• introducing a new model control framework, supplemented by new accounting officer overview guidance which will ensuring best practice in management assurance arrangements over the Control Framework across all organisations

2. Enabling efficiency

The Finance function empowers ministers, budget holders, and decision-making boards at all levels to manage their resources efficiently by providing:

• the finance and performance insights they need to manage their budgets effectively
• access to relevant tools, guidance, and training
• access to an appropriately qualified Finance Business Partner and specialist financial services such as risk management

Finance Business Partners are finance and business experts who may be embedded within policy and delivery teams. They support budget holders and in turn are supported by the specialist skills of the wider finance function. They have clear escalation routes for material matters or matters that are novel, contentious, or likely to set a precedent elsewhere.

The Government Finance Function will enable greater efficiency through:

• improve the management information provided to budget holders by further developing board pack reporting standards, presenting financial and performance reporting in integrated reporting
• expand the utility of benchmarking as a practice to stimulate change and drive continuous improvements, a new project team will conduct Discovery Pilots to identify efficiency opportunities in cross-cutting areas of spending and build capability by sharing case studies and methodologies
• further upskilling and support for Finance Business Partners through implementation of the Finance Career Framework, delivery of the Finance Forefront training programme, the refreshed Finance Business Partner Handbook and the support of the Finance Business Partner Network
• improving the quality of investment appraisals though the updated Green Book guidance, the new Treasury Approval Process, and associated training

3. Organising ourselves efficiently

Given that efficiency is core to the finance function’s mission, it’s appropriate that the function aims to organise itself in the most efficient way possible. The Finance Function is the only government function not to grow its workforce over the last 5 years and maintains the smallest central team.

The Government Finance Function will deliver more efficiently through:

• the Functional Convergence Programme will drive greater join-up and interoperability between Finance, HR & Commercial functions creating a single blueprint of leading practice across departments and the wider Civil Service in a new digital repository for all to access, the programme will directly support the formation of new shared service centres, automation, and comparable functional performance data which will enable improved benchmarking of common processes
• continuing to digitise the finance function through further development of OSCAR II. Looking ahead, we are planning to automate the collection and distribution of finance data via OSCAR II: reducing the number of manual data collections from the centre; reducing the time spent in departments and organisations processing data, the OSCAR II Planning Analytics Workspace tool will enable departmental users to generate analytical insights from their inputted data for external and internal reporting
• attracting, retaining, and upskilling a specialist finance workforce is potentially a significant burden for government organisations. The GFF central teams provide support for this, including the Government Finance Academy which will continue to produce training for finance and non-finance professionals to ensure the Civil Service workforce has the skills it needs to meet the high standards of financial management expected by Parliament and by citizens
• specialist Centres of Excellence including the Government Internal Audit Agency, UK Government Investments (the Corporate Finance Centre of Excellence), the Tax Centre of Excellence, the Technical Accounting Centre of Excellence, and the new Risk Management profession provide cross-government leadership, best practice, advice for better of financial management

Supporting a Modern Civil Service

The Government Finance Function Strategy supports the vision set out in the Declaration on Government Reform, for a skilled, innovative, and ambitious Civil Service, equipped for the future.

People

We will have the best people leading and working in government to deliver better outcomes for citizens

The GFF Strategy will ensure we maintain and advance a high-performing finance workforce with great people, with the right skills for today and the future. We will foster an inclusive culture that values diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

Specifically, the GFF People and Capability Team will:

• support the refresh of the Government Apprenticeships Strategy, to ensure we build a long-term talent pipeline to support the finance workforce of the future (Action 8)
• integrate the Government Finance Academy into the new Training Campus for Government. The GFF will develop financial L&D products for the new Government Campus Curriculum (Action 6) and for training programmes for Ministers (Action 9)
• support initiatives to improve the porosity of the UK Civil Service (Actions 2, 4 and 5) enabling movement of staff between UK and Devolved Governments and major organisations in the UK and internationally, to
• advise on capability-based pay, performance management, and assignment duration expectations for Finance SCS. (Actions 10, 11 and 12)
• support finance teams as roles move out of London, ensuring that people are supported and have a clear career path and access to learning and development opportunities no matter where they are based. (Action 1)
• convene and support the GFF Diversity and Inclusion Working Group to continue to develop our Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing Strategy so that it aligns with the wider Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, we will feed into and support the wider Civil Service strategy (Action 14)

Performance

We will modernise the operation of government, and be more disciplined in prioritising and evaluating what we do

The GFF Strategy sets out how we will modernise the operation of government and support departments to be more disciplined in prioritising and evaluating what we do.

Specifically:

• the Public Value Unit will support departments in developing Outcome Delivery plans and setting up Delivery Boards with NED involvement to monitor performance (Actions 13 and 15)
• the Finance Convergence Team will work with Government Business Services and other government functions to ensure all new finance systems are interoperable with other relevant government IT systems (Action 20)
• the Finance Insight Team will partner with the new Central Digital and Data Office to drive digital innovation in finance and the use of data visualisation tools in analysis, the Finance Analytics, Control and Technology team will promote the use of our finance data in decision-making across government (Action 18)
• the GFF Strategy, Engagement and Performance Team will maintain and develop the Government Finance Standard and support departments and organisations with implementation (Action 16)
• the Evaluation Task Force will ensure consistent high quality impact evaluation and transparency (Action 23)

Partnership

We will act together, as one government team, to deliver for citizens

The GFF Strategy sets out our ambition of a more open and inclusive finance function, proactively working with other functions and customers to deliver better outcomes for citizens.

Specifically:

• the Treasury Office of Accounts will support a review of models of accountability for decision-making and ensure guidance on financial governance aligns with findings (Action 30)
• finance teams across government will continue to publish audited and detailed financial reports and accounts which provide a true and fair account of public spending, the Government Financial Reporting team will continue to set standards in financial reporting which drive further transparency (Action 25)
• the GFF Strategy, Engagement and Performance team will identify best practice in ALB departmental sponsorship relationships between finance teams and support adoption of best practice, aligning with the wider work on ALB departmental sponsorship (Action 24)
• the GFF will continue to manage the Shared Outcomes Fund supporting pilot projects that cut across departmental responsibilities, testing innovative ways of working across the public sector and to scale up SOF pilots where the evaluation shows the solutions work
• the GFF supports cross-cutting data and insight projects and supports the users across government to use financial data from OSCAR II supporting better value for money decision-making
• we are building on the success of the Finance Convergence Programme to deliver a Functional Convergence Programme with Commercial and CSHR which will develop global interoperable processes to support efficient delivery of corporate services across government
• the GFF will work closely with the Analysis Function to upskill and support the standards underpinning the Aqua Book to strengthen the quality of analysis across government