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

“All successful organisations have effective financial management. A key part of that is ensuring that board members and all managers in the organisation are confident in financial management and are able to demand the right support and advice from finance professionals. These resources can help achieve this so that people are finance aware and value for money is part of the culture.” – Nigel Hiller, Director of Finance and Administration, South Yorkshire Police.

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. Successful organisations acknowledge the need for ‘good financial management’ and recognise its fundamental importance to maximising performance.

It is not always clear what is expected from the people on the board or heading service units, or what financial management competencies they need to do their jobs. This pack offers organisations the resources they need to address the key organisational discipline of financial management and to develop financial literacy throughout the organisation.

Board members are the focus of public accountability but they need managers to be financially literate and they need finance professionals to contribute challenge, interpretation and advice. When these three groups successfully fulfil their financial management responsibilities, they collectively create the financially literate organisation.

This extraordinarily timely resource pack is in two parts, one for the board, or its equivalent, and another for managers. Each part includes:

• A briefing that individuals can use to test their understanding and assure themselves that they are acting in the organisation’s interest in relation to financial management. And to help identify development areas.
• A competency framework for financial management, providing a structured framework for the knowledge and behaviours that help build the financially literate organisation. This can be imported into its overall competency suite. Each framework is accompanied by guidance to help organisations maximise the benefits of using a competency framework and avoid common pitfalls.

Organisations can use these resources flexibly. The briefings can be circulated to individuals to help prepare for workshop training events, or more widely to identify knowledge gaps and training requirements. The competency frameworks can be imported wholesale as a ‘financial management’ cluster or existing frameworks reviewed for completeness.