Chief Finance Officer, Financial Management: Alan Osborne
This team is headed by the council's Chief Finance Officer in support of the delivery of the council’s Corporate Plan and Strategic Change programme, and its priorities for improvement action over the next year.
Critically this includes Financial Management’s response to dealing with the increasing demands and challenges presented by Government through the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) and the Gershon efficiency agenda as well as the Audit Commission’s recommendations and requirements and the Council’s external auditors.
Financial Management is sub-divided between Accountancy, Income, Systems and Internal Audit teams.
Accountancy
This team is subdivided into Technical Accounting Services and Business Support Services.
The Technical Accounting team provide the predominantly outward facing services. These include:
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producing the statement of accounts
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co-ordinating and completing statutory CIPFA returns
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VAT management
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treasury management activities
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reconciliations
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cash flow management
The Business Services team provide predominantly inward facing services. These include:
- budget manager support relating to budget forecasting and preparation
- budget monitoring, control and reporting
- closing the accounts
- providing financial advice, information and guidance on costing analysis and option appraisal
- managing the capital strategy.
Systems Support
The main services provided by this team are maintaining and developing financial information systems, including the main financial information system, interfacing of all required feeder systems, Cash receipting system, BACS system and automated bank reconciliation. The Council migrated to Civica Authority Financials on 1 April 2007.
Internal Audit
The Internal Audit Team provides an internal audit service using a risk approach which is aligned to the Corporate Risk Register.
The team’s work includes work on behalf of the external auditors and covers all aspects of the Council’s work. The team is headed by the Internal Audit Manager with four further auditors, including two specialised auditors covering Information Systems and Revenues and Benefits.
Income
