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April 2008 - Present  Government of Jersey, Department for Health and Community Services - Assistant Director of Finance

 

During my 10 years at HCS, I have had two different Assistant Director of Finance roles. From 2008 to 2013, I lead the departments planning & reporting function, managing a team of 18 staff. Since 2013, I have been leading on HCS’ long term strategic modernisation programmes. This has included supporting the development and implementation of the Mental Health Strategy, Acute Service Strategy and Workforce Modernisation programme. I was also involved in the development of the Future Hospital Outline Business Case, which has been a key enabler to the whole system transformation of healthcare on the Island. More recently, my role has focused on the Government of Jersey (GoJ) reorganisation which has involved leading integration of the finance function, implementation of transformation through cost improvement programmes to balance a budget deficit of £14.2m (representing 7% of HCS budget) as well as financial planning to support the implementation of the HCS target operating model (TOM).

 

Key Responsibilities

• Supporting the determination of the long-term strategic direction of HCS to align with the Government of Jersey objectives by designing and implementing costed long-term demand and capacity models. This involved the integration of activity, workforce and cost, providing clear, robust expert financial advice and information to the most senior HCS officers and political decision makers, putting finance at the heart of departmental decision making.

• Supporting departmental strategies for Acute, Mental Health & workforce planning by leading the costing of the medium-term financial implications of the strategies, which resulted in the successful approval of business cases to fund their implementation.

• Supporting migration policy development across GoJ.

• Developing the costing tool & leading the costing of the HCS TOM.

• Supporting the development of commercial, best practice, green book compliant business cases which represent value for money and identify robust KPIs.

• Supporting and collaborating with the HCS Director General, Directors and senior operational leaders to identify Cost Improvement Projects (CIPs) and investments that will realise service improvements. These service improvements achieve both productivity and cost efficiency whilst supporting the medium- and longer-term transformation goals of the department and GoJ, all the while keeping the patient at the heart of everything that we do.

• Leading the provision of valued financial insight, strategic support and challenge in identifying potential service improvements, through benchmarking and interventions modelling, with my challenging approach facilitating an open and continuous dialogue on all financial matters and decisions.

• Finance lead for the development and implementation of the HCS Finance Action Plan which supports the transformation of both HCS and the HCS finance team as it transitions into the One Government TOM.

• Solving funding problems both within HSSD and across other Government of Jersey Departments, using combinations of recurrent and non-recurrent solutions with CIPs, challenging and deferring investment requirements.

• Working in collaboration with clinical and corporate colleagues, other departments, external suppliers and experts to produce the Government Plan, previously the Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP), supporting the delivery of the highest quality public services for the Islanders of Jersey.

• Hosting a collaborative space to promote increased understanding of cost drivers and performance metrics using Patient Level Information and Costing System (PLICS) in the CIPs and long-term modelling for HCS whilst applying my creativity and extensive commercial business experience.

• Application of best practice into development tools and models using emergent technology such as Power BI and Alteryx to support short, medium- and long-term decision making e.g. I have been working towards implementation of a long-term planning policy for HCS underpinned by an organisational costed demand and capacity model, linked to monthly integrated and budget holder reporting using current best practice technology and programming such as Power BI and SQL.

• Managing the whole HCS finance team consisting of 18 staff, driving the ambassadorial aspects through and developing skills and talent, appraisals, encouraging innovation to continuously improve the HCS finance function whilst challenging the often-limiting mind-sets of some team members.

• Developing strong relationships with challenge to senior leaders and budget holders to improve performance in a safe, sustainable affordable manner and create robust business cases and investment appraisals in order to transform services in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) environment.

• Identification of key financial risks for project risk registers, identifying and agreeing risk management and mitigation measures.

• Working with internal audit and requesting independent reviews to tighten financial controls to ensure cost containment after budget reductions through CIPs.

• Writing and communicating the Annual Financial Plan, Financial Policies, Year End Pages, Monthly and Quarterly financial reporting, Ministerial Decisions and reports, Project Initiation Documents (PIDs), OBC’s, Business Cases etc.

• Ensuring clear, robust analysis, communication and commentary on departmental activity and performance.

• Attending and communicating complex technical information at Ministerial briefings, leading project steering group meetings, presenting papers to the HCS Management Executive, presenting to the Treasurer and transformation boards.

• Managing and developing the month end, year-end, accounts preparation and budget setting for the department.

• Developing, managing and maintaining a budgetary control framework and system that motivates and incentivises appropriate behaviours.

• Leading, developing and maintaining an appropriate control and assurance framework through the mapping of processes and controls and developing compliance programmes of work.

 

Key Achievements/Projects

• Leading a finance project to identify CIPs for HCS to support the budget deficit of £14.2m, approximately 7% of the 2019 annual budget for the department

• Developing and leading the implementation of the finance action plan to align the service to the needs of the department and integrate the team into the One Government finance function for GoJ.

• Client finance lead for the production of the Future Hospital OBC, a project with a capital budget of £466m.

• Finance lead for the design and development of a unique Acute Service Model which identified and incorporated productivity and cost improvements which underpinned the Acute Service Strategy and delivered new funding of £9m.

• Development and management of the HCS professional accountant training program with 5 trainees progressing to qualified accountants supporting succession planning in the specialist Health Finance team. This program was adopted as best practice in GoJ.

 

 

Sep 2007 – Apr 2008                    Sandpiper Limited

                                                         Chartered Accountancy Services

 

Supporting sandpiper on a contract basis as they prepared to sell the business.

 

 

Jun 2005 – Jul 2007                      Royal Bank of Canada Trust Company (International) Limited, Jersey

Standard Bank Trust Company Limited, Jersey

                                                         Senior Manager

 

Supporting the Establishment and development of a Middle Eastern portfolio of high net worth individuals requiring UK tax and estate planning

 

 

Sep 1995 – Jun 2005                    Highlands College

                                                         Contract Teacher

 

 

Sep 1995 – Jun 2005                     Self Employed, Jersey

                                                         Chartered Accountant

 

 

Sep 1987 – Apr 1995                    Ernst & Young, Jersey

                                                         Auditor 1987 to 1990

                                                          Trust & Company Manager 1990 to 1995

Education & qualifications

• BA (Hons) Accounting & Finance – University of the West of England - 1987

• Member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales – 1991

• Certificate in Education – Southampton University – 2003

• Graduate Certificate in Psychosynthesis Foundations – University of East London – 2008

• Yellow Belt Lean Practitioner - 2013

• Psychosynthesis Leadership Coach – Middlesex University – 2018

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Community Projects

July 2019 to December 2019 I brought a Climate Emergency proposition to the Grouville parish assembly in July 2019 which was supported and led to an action working group facilitated by me. In the short space of 4 months the working group identified 78 projects which were grouped, refined and distilled into the 4 pillars of the final report - quick wins, education programme, constables' collaborations and report recommendations. Each of the quick wins projects had a project lead in the Grouville community, with a project initiation document, and had commenced implementation before the finalisation of the report. The report, written by me, evaluated the target impact that the projects aimed to achieve and represented the very first carbon netrality plan for the parish and the Island of Jersey. 

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