The Background Never before have public services been so much under the media spotlight. With a general election looming and ever increasing pressures being placed on local and national infrastructures, a number of very significant transformation programmes are being driven through, aimed at achieving higher quality services and delivering unprecedented levels of financial saving.
This is the case at both local and national government levels as well as within the more ‘frontline’ service delivery environments such as hospitals, schools, universities and local authorities. The changes that will take place over the coming months and years will affect every single person in this country and will radically reshape the way in which public services are accessed in the future.
The Challenge
All organisations within the public sector are required to deliver major transformational change programmes over the coming months and years and in many individual cases, producing cost savings well in excess of £250m. This will be achieved through a wide range of different measures including organisational restructure and merger, service rationalisation, workforce transformation programmes, improved procurement practices and closer working relationships with external commercial and independent sector suppliers. Senior financial leaders will play a key role in taking public services into what is likely to be the most formative and challenging period yet.
Reasons to make the move
• There is now a real need for organisations to reinforce their executive and non executive teams in the areas of strategic financial leadership, resource management and cost improvement.
• Public service organisations are increasingly moving towards commercial sector models of management and governance and need to secure your business skills and expertise to do this successfully.
• Organisations across government and the wider public sector are already experiencing the benefits of acquiring talent from the commercial and independent sectors in both executive and non executive capacities, locally, regionally and nationally.
• Public service organisations are large and immensely complex, with turnovers ranging from £15m to over £2bn and workforces from 200 to 20,000. Few areas of the commercial sector could offer you the same scope and scale of challenge, and the career reward.
• Delivering in one of these major posts could make your skills and experience all the more marketable moving back into the commercial sector longer term.
• Your skills and experience gained within large, people focused environments such as retail, manufacturing, banking, transport and leisure are recognised as highly valuable commodities.
• We all have opinions on how well public services are performing and how they should be run. As the CFO of such an organisation, you’ll no longer just be watching from the sidelines!
How to register your interest
We are looking to hear from individuals who have operated at or near board level within any area of the commercial or independent sector, who genuinely feel that they can use their proven business acumen and financial management skills to shape the future of public services.
In the first instance, interested individuals should either submit their CV and a brief covering letter online or email these to public.finance@odgersberndtson.co.uk
Please include the following information:
• Specific areas of interest:
o Charities
o Education
o Government
o Health/Social care
o Housing/Regeneration
o Regulation
• Geographical preferences
• Salary expectations and notice period
• Interest in executive and/or non executive positions
• Preference for permanent and/or interim opportunities
Next Steps
All interest will be acknowledged by an automated email response. Your information will be logged on our database and depending on your preferences and professional background, you will be contacted by a member of the team should there be any current or future suitable opportunities.
The Odgers Berndtson team is also planning to hold a series of presentation evenings for interested individuals. These sessions are intended to provide information about the stages of public sector recruitment processes and an opportunity to discuss some of the issues and challenges of moving across sectors. It is anticipated that the first presentation evening will be held in early March; if you would like to attend such an event, please indicate this in your supporting material.
