Between Septemb…

Advisor to major accountancy firms
Between September and December 2011 I have been acting as a consultant to a consortium of accountancy firms seeking entry to the post-Audit Commission market. I led on the writing of the Invitation to Tender document, with a particular focus on audit approach and future challenges facing clients in the next 5 years. I also worked with the lead Partner on the financial aspects of the bid, and the challenges of integrating a TUPE workforce into the existing structures and teams of the Firms involved. Great fun !!

Reference from Head of Financial Services at Redcar & Cleveland

“David has proved to be an excellent interim solution for Redcar and Cleveland Council over the period that he has worked for the Council.

David was appointed to coordinate and launch the Internal Audit shared service between two Local Authorities, ensuring that the previously two individual Audit teams became one. An element of the process was to establish a professional offering and a value adding service for both Councils – This was achieved in full. His brief was to work with the team, establishing the appropriate governance environment and a new way of working, that built on what was there, but fundamentally changed the service offer.

David, through this arrangement, has been excellent in driving through the practical application for creating strong linkages between service realities and governance requirements and has undertaken this task in an engaging manner.

David is a responsive and very helpful professional who I would recommend to others, he has supported the key officers of the Council, thus allowing the Councils to develop their outcomes for improved practice in accord with governance requirements across the full Council arena.”

The above the recommendation I received today from the Head of Corporate Financial Service (Section 151 officer) at Redcar & Cleveland. Excellent.

July 2010 – the end of my Interim assignment as Manager of the Shared Service

Thought I’d round off the interim assignment feedback on my time as Audit Manager for the shared internal audit service in Redcar & Cleveland and Middlesbrough Councils.

I finished with them, as agreed, at the end of July, and as I write the new Manager should have started. I was lucky enough to be invited to sit in on the interview process for my substantive replacement, and in my humble opinion they made an excellent choice.

I think we (and I stress the we) made a real start in setting up a true shared service within the two councils. We learnt a lot about what it takes to make a shared service work (vision, strategy, buy-in from both senior management teams, logistics of IT, accommodation, audit approach, charging and accounting arrangements). We also learnt a lot about creating one team where there had been (at least) two, and about inspiring confidence for the challenges ahead amongst those in the team. I think we began to release enterprise, ambition, and desire amongst some; and if we are honest began to challenge one or two people to reflect on their skills, and their performance.

More than all of that we also re-positioned Internal Audit, and its plan and its offer, at the core of the governance processes of both Councils, with a relevance to their future challenges and risks that Internal Audit hadn’t had in the preceding years. In an environment of greater choice, greater localism, and greater accountability, as presaged in the Open Public Services White Paper, that has got to be a good thing. A good thing to assure and reassure officers, Councillors, and the public.

I’d like to finish by saying a huge thank you to the team. It’s in the nature of being an interim that you turn up, pick up a task, but also that one day you will walk away. That on my last day the team gave me a card signed by all, and a beautiful gift, meant more to me than I can say. They were very generous in their praise of me. I quibbled with only one thing that they said – as I pointed out ‘I’ hadn’t laid the foundations for a revised shared service within the Council : rather ‘we’ had laid those foundations, set out that vision, and actually begun to deliver on our workplan, including some key work on risks to the delivery of key strategic outcomes at both Councils. Well done to them all.

Two months in – and all’s well!

End of April and making good progress. We’ve appointed three new team members, all of whom will be a credit to the new shared team, and all of whom show an ability to respond to the challenges the shared service will face in the future, not just replicate what the old separate teams delivered in the past.

It is becoming very apparent that with the change in the audit and inspectorate landscapes, revised roles for Care Quality Commission, Ofsted, and Audit Commission; the role, expectation and opportunity for Internal Audit services will be very different. But that does requrie an appreciation of the changing strategic landscape, and sufficient vision and an ability to translate vision into action for Internal Audit to be able to respond to that changed expectation. I think we are setting out on that journey, but as I suggsted in my last post there are plenty of detail issues to resolve to make that happen. Interesting too that it will require Councillors, Chief Officers and who knows maybe partners too, to respond to a new, more strategic, and maybe more assertive Internal Audit that takes centre stage in the governance frameworks of Councils and maybe their partners, and acts as an early warning radar for problems ‘just over the horizon’. The need for audit professionals to network ever more effectively seems ever greater to me. The need to move away from historic risk based plans to something with more strategic appreciation and flexibility is also key in my view.

Interesting too to reflect on the CLG proposals around the future of local public audit. I think they are likely to also impact on the revised role for internal audits in the future, and what assurance each part in that jigsaw provides to the those charged with governance. Some pretty big assumptions in all that about the role of the new Independent Audit Committees, and the calibre and responsibilities placed upon the new audit committee members.

More from me in a while – as always if this sparks any thoughts with you please get in touch

Dave J

One month of interim !!

So – four weeks in, leading a shared service as it develops and begins to take shape. Great fun, good people to work with, and as always the excitement of the new. Some good learning too – about being an interim and making sure I leave momentum and transferable skills with those who will have to manage after my interim stint.

And learning about shared services – about some of the easy to forget basics like a common IT architecture (‘cos otherwise we’d all have to have two laptops – one for each client site!); a shared vision which the current teams need to buy into (and help shape), and which both senior management teams have to help shape. About the skills and people that will be necessary for our future business, and that’s not necessarily the skills we historically had; about budgets and recharges; about basic processes to manage and lead a disparate set of teams as they come together into one truely flexible shared service team.

The vision remains – that a shared service can maximise delivered outcomes, complement skills and experience, and deliver economies of scale.

If you want to get in touch and discuss – please do – will post another update in a few weeks time.

Dave J

Welcome to Jennings Advisory Services

Thank you for visiting my website. You can find more about how Jennings Advisory Services can help you and your organisation achieve your goals.

I will be blogging here too about topical issues as well as providing updates, where I can, on the various projects with which I am involved.

David Jennings, March 2011