Daniella Owen - A pathway to a meaningful career

Daniella's story

Daniella Owen is an Accountant in Children's Services at Coventry City Council, her first substantive role since joining the local authority’s finance team on its Graduate Trainee programme in September 2022. She is also currently undertaking the CIPFA Level 7 Accountancy Professional Apprenticeship programme, which she is scheduled to complete in December 2025.

Having graduated with a first class honours degree in International Relations from Cardiff University Daniella worked for a year in various civil service roles before successfully applying for her graduate trainee position via the National Graduate Development Programme (NGDP) – now rebranded as Impact – run by the Local Government Association (LGA). The scheme, which seeks to match graduates with councils, caught Daniella’s attention when she was at university, but she was already keen to pursue a career in public services.

“I've always been interested in working in the public sector,” Daniella says. “I used to do lots of volunteering growing up, and I've always wanted a career that involves giving back to the community, and delivering services to everybody in the community, particularly helping those that are usually hard to reach.”

Although she didn’t have a traditional finance background, the NGDP process presented her with the opportunity to join Coventry City Council in a finance graduate trainee role that, she says, appealed to her strengths.

“I enjoy problem solving, and I've always been good with numbers,” Daniella says. “I also liked that the programme offered a pathway to a meaningful career in the public sector – it was a bit vocational, and there was a professional qualification at the end of it.”

Guidance and advice

Sarah Kinsell is Finance Manager for Children’s & Education Services at Coventry City Council and also has responsibility for the Council’s Finance Training Schemes. Her role involves supporting graduate trainees – including Daniella – in completing their CIPFA apprenticeship and helping them along their way to qualification. Having previously studied for the CIPFA qualification she can call on her own experience to offer useful insights and guidance to apprentices.

“The training programme is a key part of our financial management structure and the culture that we have at Coventry,” Sarah explains. “We invest a significant amount of time into this, as we recognise the benefit having apprentices within finance brings to us and the whole organisation. We've been recruiting CIPFA trainees and CIPFA apprentices via the NGDP for a few years now. We have an incredible success rate of people completing and becoming fully qualified and a good retention rate with our graduate trainees – and that's something that we are really proud of at Coventry.”

While it may be becoming more difficult to recruit experienced or qualified people across the sector, apprenticeships offer a valuable solution, Sarah suggests. “Recruiting apprentices supports the workforce strategy, but also succession planning – it helps us to plan for the future of finance.

“From a diversity and inclusion perspective, too, we feel it is important to recruit new people externally, bringing new views and fresh ideas into the team and the organisation. It gives us a great opportunity to be open to a wider pool of candidates. Finance has never been so key in local government, with budgets always under pressure, so attracting the best to us is vitally important.”

Challenges and rewards

Midway through her apprenticeship, Daniella is enjoying the experience. “It's challenging, but you get a lot back. With no finance background, it was a little daunting at first. It's hard work and you have to put a lot of your own time into it, but when you pass your exams it’s really rewarding. It’s certainly giving me the skills and experience to set me up for my future career.”

The programme also provides knowledge and learning that can be used across the wider public sector, something Daniella also values. “Beyond only financial skills, it's also given me other wider experiences – different things you might have to do as a manager one day. In the public sector, especially now, everybody needs an understanding of finances – the apprenticeship gives you many skills you can take elsewhere into other careers if you didn't want to stay specifically in finance.”

A key part of the programme is based around placements, to give apprentices experience across the organisation. “I've really enjoyed that aspect,” Daniella says. “We’re able to learn about things in class and then be able to apply them practically in work situations, which works really well for the apprenticeship. I started in centralised finance support while I was learning the absolute basics of finance, and it really complemented what I was learning in class. Then I moved on to doing a schools finance placement, carrying out assurance checks in schools, which complemented the audit module I was then studying, and had a similar experience in treasury management. It delivers lots of variety and exposure to different aspects of the council and the variety of services it delivers.”

Daniella highlights how the course progressively builds up layers of skills and knowledge, going beyond technical finance skills to provide a deeper understanding of the public sector generally, and the importance it places on developing both hard and soft skills.

“Reflective writing, for example, is a key soft skill you learn; you write about your work experience – consider what you’ve learned, how you felt and your response to doing a certain piece of work, reflecting on how well it went and what you’d do differently. That’s an important skill that can be particularly useful in different roles throughout your career. You also learn a lot of time management and organisational skills – how to prioritise and deprioritise and use your time effectively.”

Daniella is looking forward to stepping up to a senior finance role in the future. In the meantime, she is keen to recommend the CIPFA apprenticeship to anyone considering a public sector career.

“It’s a well-structured and well supported way of getting a public sector finance qualification,” she says. “It takes you from the basics all the way up to the strategic level. It gradually increases your knowledge, returning to different subjects in increasing depth as you acquire knowledge, and it’s structured cleverly so that modules sit together and complement each other. But there is also some flexibility with it too to help with individual learning requirements.”

Daniella also enthuses about the support she has received from students, colleagues, tutors and her learning manager. “There's a group mindset with everyone helping each other. You also get a lot of support from CIPFA as well, with a work-based learning coach there if you have any questions or concerns. There are always plenty of people there to support you.”

Sarah in turn praises Daniella’s progress. “Nothing is ever too much for Daniella,” she says. “She'll always prioritise her work around things that need doing and things as a team that we need to complete. She will use her initiative, asking questions, using what she’s learned to solve problems – all critical elements of the CIPFA apprenticeship experience.” She's not afraid to challenge either, Sarah says. “We often have to be that critical friend to the service that we support, and Daniella executes that incredibly well.”

Informed by her positive experiences as both a former CIPFA student and training manager, Sarah is keen to recommend this pathway to others. “You learn skills that go far beyond numbers and technical accounting. You don't need a background or any experience in finance – in fact, almost all our graduates have come from a different background. It opens the door to wide range of careers across the public sector, not just local government.”

She continues: “The role is hugely rewarding – you learn so much beyond the numbers that informs and supports the impact your work can have on the community. It’s a really valuable qualification to achieve.”

Although still on her apprenticeship journey, Daniella agrees: “If you're considering the CIPFA apprenticeship, I would definitely recommend it. It is hard work, but it is really rewarding and it sets you up for a good career.”