Financial services strategy

The Financial Services department uphold the statutory duties and responsibilities for the proper administration of the financial affairs in support of the S151 Officer (Head of Finance and Treasurer).

The role of the Financial Services department is to provide professional financial services, high quality financial advice and assistance to other departments in achieving their service objectives, and to officers and members of the Fire Authority to make informed decisions and ensuring compliance with statutory regulations and best practice.

The services provided by Finance need to maintain a rigorous system of financial controls that ensures robust stewardship of public resources.

Our ambition

Our Financial Services strategy supports our ambition to be an outstanding fire and rescue service in the following ways:

By ensuring all our statutory duties and responsibilities are met
By providing transparency and ensuring value for money, to give communities confidence
By ensuring budgets are appropriately set and prudently spent
By ensuring the long-term financial stability of the Service
By ensuring robust financial advice is given to aid decision making
By succession planning to ensure the service remains resilient and able to meet the needs of the organisation

Where we want to be

During the life of this strategy, we aim to:

Improve financial literacy across the organisation
A culture of financial literacy allows the principles of sound financial management to be embedded in the way the organisation works and the into strategic and operational decisions
Introduce financial modelling
The use of the appropriate tools and techniques ensures that the longer-term, full life cycle financial implications of proposed courses of action are given timely and appropriate consideration
Implementation of new version of Agresso (migration to cloud) and ITrent
Fit for purpose and supported financial management system (FMD) and payroll system are essential to delivering the financial services function
Build resilience in the Finance team
The financial services team has been restructured recently to facilitate succession planning and resilience. This will be further reviewed and changed as opportunities arise. A specific area of action is the Payroll and Pension Manager role - as the postholder is expected to retire in 2025, they have a wealth of experience in relation payroll and firefighter pensions, potentially leaving a significant knowledge gap. The knowledge transfer is underway and needs to take place within the wider team

Operating context and drivers for change

The Head of Finance and Treasurer (Section 151 Officer) is a Statutory Officer Role and is the head of the finance function and central in:

Providing effective financial advice to Fire Authority and its Committees
Organising and maintaining a sound system of financial governance and control
Ensuring that the council follows all of its legal duties in financial matters

Much of the financial services work carried out is driven by statutory accounting and reporting requirements and contractual requirements in respect of employees and suppliers.

The main legislation which we must comply with is:

Local Government Act 1972 Section 151
Local Government Act 1998 Section 114
Local Government Act 2000 & 2003
Localism Act 2011
Local Government Finance Act 2012
Accounts & Audit Regulations 2015

There are also a number of Codes of Practice we must comply with:

CIPFA Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting
CIPFA Service Reporting Code of Practice
Prudential Code for Capital Finance in Local Authorities
Treasury Management Code of Practice
Financial Management Code

We also have to conduct our work in accordance with our internal governance procedure such as the terms of references for Fire Authority and its Committees, Schemes of delegation to officers and our financial principles, procedures and regulations.

Drivers for change include:

Increasingly challenging economic context
Need to deliver efficiency and productivity gains
Increasing statutory requirements and complexity relating to the statutory accounts and audit and pensions remedy
National difficulties in recruiting and retaining employees within Local Government financial roles including Firefighter pension roles

Resources/ delivery model

The finance team is based at JHQ and its responsibilities include:

The completion of the statutory statement of accounts
The statutory requirement to set a balanced budget covering revenue and capital budgets
The monitoring of the revenue and capital budgets
Treasury management
The completion of government and other statistical returns
Financial reconciliations including VAT returns
Financial strategy and planning
Provision of professional financial advice and support
Insurance procurement and management

As well as a number of transactional services including payroll and pensions, income management, the raising of invoices, the payment of suppliers and creditors.

Delivering the strategy

Over the life of this strategy, we will deliver the following:

Year 1	Develop communications approach and internal reporting to share regular finance updates with colleagues Develop education for budget owners, especially those who are new to role Establish clear ownership of budgets and alignment of responsibilities Develop clearer understanding and reporting on budget adjustments Embed use of financial modelling to capture costs and benefits of new or changing activities Train payroll team members to take up pensions remedy work Recruit to Payroll and Pension Manager post on retirement of current postholder Migrate Agresso to a cloud-based version Support the procurement for the extension to the iTrent contract (HR and Payroll System) Procurement and implementation of Insurance contract
Year 2	Establish a payroll project representative/team to work with the HR project team to complete market testing and requirements gathering for HR/payroll system Implement data storage solution for pension remedy information Establish an FMS project team to complete market testing and requirements gathering for a new FMS system
Year 3	Payroll system procurement and implementation FMS procurement and implementation

Outcomes

The successful delivery of this strategy will result in:

Compliance with statutory duties and best practice standards
Improved organisational resilience and efficiency
Strengthened governance and assurance mechanisms
Strengthened decision making
Improved budget ownership and accountability