We were asked by a charity to review their cash and financial management arrangements. The organisation supported vulnerable adults placed in its care homes and outreach centres across the country. We helped them improve their practises by:
- Developing a new approach with local managers so that there was more guidance and clarity for making decisions in a devolved setting. Specifically, we helped to produce a set of rules about what spending was permissible by local budget holders.
- Producing a single, organisational approach for managing finances. This helped to overcome some of the inconsistencies that existed with each site’s own methods of working and improved the completeness and accuracy of returns to the central finance team. This meant that missing or incomplete transactions could be identified and addressed earlier, saving staff time and effort.
- Identifying process efficiencies so that the level of cash holdings at local sites could be reduced.
- Helping clarify the regulatory and legal framework for financial decision-making that supported service users so that the charity could meet more fully CQC guidance and standards.