Leading Change in Finance

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Leading Change in Finance Corporate Services

• Jon Thompson
• Director General, Corporate Services
• DfES
• jon.thompson_at_dfes.gsi.gov.uk

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Why Work For The DfES?

• A short presentation

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Feel Inspired Now That You Make A Difference?
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My Objectives

• Brief background to corporate services at the
  DfES
• Drivers for change
• Vision for finance
• Leading change
• Personal

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A. DfES Key Metrics

• Revenue DEL and AME of 69bn
• Capital DEL of 6bn
• 3,500 staff, 1.2m people work in sector
• 22,607 schools, 387 colleges, 130 Unis very
  complex stakeholder map
• 4.3bn efficiency programme
• Big, complex and great fun!

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A. Corporate Services Remit
IS
HR
Procurement
Finance
Strategy
Research
Estates
Change
Equalities
Shared Services
Statistics
986 FTE 102m budget
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B. Confront the brutal facts we have to change

• Customer needs rising
• Capability Review raising deficiencies
• Professionalisation agenda requires us to deliver
  more
• Move to value added away from transactional
  (going to shared services)
• Pressure on resources
• External standards finance, IS, HR, PPMU, risk,
  etc

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B1. An example Customer views on eight core
services
POSITIVE
NEUTRAL
NEGATIVE
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B4. Cost v Effectiveness Map Where are you?
L
Best Practice, Best in class performance
Cost focus with low customer support
Cost data (units)
Expensive and low quality
Customer focus but expensive
H
H
L
Effectiveness
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C. Our Conclusion

• We needed
• a clear sense of vision (CI)
• to go back to first principles for success in
  financial management (C2)
• to challenge the culture and ensure finance is
  taken seriously by others (C3)
• to build provision from these

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C1. Vision for Finance?
Objectives
Delivery
Systems
Policy
Resources
Organisation Culture
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C2. Principles for Finance?
Being customer driven
Advice / partnering
Being corporate
Standardisation, integration and simplification
Transparency
Excellence
Providing value for money
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C3. Changing Organisational Attitude to Finance?
C3. Intregration a new Corporate Performance
Report
Programmes
Projects
Delivery
PSAs, targets
Money
Risk
Resources
Asset
People
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D. Emotional Curve
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D. Leading change

• Vision for future
• Tackling known issues - must confront brutal
  facts
• Flywheel approach
• Emotional sell
• see Good To Great by Dr Jim Collins

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E. Personal Impact my time
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E. Personal reflection

• Being a Director General is
• complex
• tough
• great fun
• immensely rewarding