The Finance Team provides comprehensive and wide ranging financial support services to Children's Services and Schools. The key activities of the team are:
- Budget setting and monitoring, including school funding.
- Provision of financial advice and support to schools, governors and service managers, and the Investing in our Children Priority Board.
- Capital programme planning and monitoring.
- Administration of grants due to the Council.
- Ensuring statutory duties are discharged and regulations and financial polices are adhered to.
- Supporting procurement and projects such as services traded with schools.
The Finance Team provides the following statutory services:
- LA budget preparation, including the schools’ funding formula, production and publication of accounts;
- Monitoring service and school expenditure;
- Administration of grants due to the Council;
- Ensuring relevant taxation and superannuation payments are made;
- Preparation and monitoring of the capital programme;
- Supporting the Chief Financial Officer to meet his statutory responsibilities.
The Finance Team adds value to the work of Children's Services by:
- Providing financial support to policy development and implementation;
- Providing effective advice and management information to schools and managers;
- Ensuring resources are aligned with service delivery priorities.
- Supporting the introduction of the new Resource Management System.
Re-engineer the traded support services provided to schools. The team consists of three main areas:
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School Support Team provides support to schools, focusing on the Council's statutory role.
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Central Support Team provides support to the Children's Services Divisions and Services.
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Procurement and Projects provides support for procurement, services traded with schools and other one-off short term tasks.
Staff involvement and development
Staff are encouraged to attend internal training and development events, to consider pursuing external qualification training and to make suggestions for improvement. Periodic team meetings are held and current publications and journals are made available.
The team will be part of the corporate review of Finance which takes place during 2010 as part of the Council's organisational Development and Improvement Plan.
