The role of the finance department in service delivery is to: 1) Deliver timely, insightful business intelligence that contributes to competitive advantage by understanding and aligning with stakeholders' requirements. 2) Interpret, explain, and drive performance while advising on business planning and influencing decisions through analysis and insights. 3) Assess business performance using accounts to help stakeholders judge how well the organization is performing and meeting their needs.

1. “Doing what we do can be viewed as
expensive. How do we ensure it’s value for
money, and what is the role of the finance
department in service delivery?”
Presented by Judi Vidler
17/07/2016

2. Doing what we do can be viewed as
expensive.
• Charities may not make best use of their funds
The issue here is whether the charity we give to devotes a high
enough proportion of its funds to the needy. Responsible charities
make it very clear what proportion of contributions is spent on
administration and fund-raising.
Demelza House Children’s Hospice
Notes to the Accounts
For the year ended 30 September 2015
7. Support Costs Total Total
Support costs consist of: 2015 2014
£ £
Human Resources and Administration 554,292 620,755
Finance 346,211 242,803
Volunteer Services 111,729 114,928
Depreciation (Charity) 505,471 400,172
1,517,703 1,378,668

3. • Charities are often accountable to the givers not the
receivers
If the purpose of charity is to benefit the recipients, it seems
obvious that those best able to say whether they are achieving
this end are the recipients. But because the recipients of charity
are often unorganised and the charity doesn't know their
individual identities, it's often easier for charities to make their
performance reports to the givers.

4. Charity may benefit the state rather than the needy
Dr Neil Levy has argued that charity can be self-defeating if
it allows the state to escape some of its responsibilities.
Large-scale philanthropy to support 'essential services' is
wrong: Charity to support essential services is bad because
it switches provision from government to charity, rather
than increasing benefits to the needy.
...large-scale philanthropic activity carries with it serious
risks of changing the balance of funding from the public to
the private sector, thereby exposing those most in need to
the vicissitudes of the market. To the extent that private
funding of essential services becomes the norm, the
vulnerable become the recipients of (at best) uncertain aid,
which is liable to fluctuations and constant reduction.
Neil Levy, Against Philanthropy

5. How do we ensure it’s value for
money
To identify good, cost-effective service we need to establish
whether it will make real measurable improvements in children's
lives and how much it will cost?
To find out if services are having this impact, we need to
measure outcomes. However, services traditionally record
outputs, which relate to how many children and young people
take up the services, but fail to focus on outcomes, which
measure how their lives have been improved.

6. Rigorous methods are available to
evaluate services which identify
impact on children's outcomes, they
are called randomised controlled
trials (RCTs), but these are rarely
used, particularly in children's
services. This is mainly because of
the lack of expertise in conducting
RCTs with children and young people,
and the fact that they can be
expensive when compared to other
research methods.
A randomized controlled trial is a type of scientific (often medical) experiment which
aims to reduce bias when testing a new treatment. The people participating in the trial
are randomly allocated to either the group receiving the treatment under investigation or
to a group receiving standard treatment (or placebo treatment) as the control.

7. Flowchart of four phases (enrollment, intervention
allocation, follow-up, and data analysis) of a parallel
randomized trial of two groups, modified from the
CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials)
2010 Statement

8. So how do we get better value for
money with children's services?
We rigorously evaluate existing services, and promote the
ones that are effective and improve (or remove) the ones
that aren't. In addition, we should conduct rigorous pilot
evaluations of new policies and services to explore their
effectiveness and cost, before rolling them out

9. What is the role of the finance
department in service delivery?
By understanding and aligning with stakeholders’
requirements, a service-focused Finance function can
deliver timely, insightful business intelligence that will
contribute to an organisation’s competitive advantage.

10. A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in a business.
Stakeholders are individuals, groups or organisations
that are affected by the activity of the business. They
include:
Owners who are interested in how much profit the
business makes.
Managers who are concerned about their salary.
Workers who want to earn high wages and keep their
jobs.
Customers who want the business to produce quality
products at reasonable prices.
Suppliers who want the business to continue to buy their
products.
Lenders who want to be repaid on time and in full.
The community which has a stake in the business as
employers of local people. Business activity also affects
the local environment.
Internal stakeholders are groups within a business - eg
owners and workers. External stakeholders are groups
outside a business - eg the community.
What are stakeholders?

11. Assessing business performance
using accounts
Information published by a business helps stakeholders to judge how
well it is performing. For example, company reports detail the
amount of profit being earned and set out the community policies
of the business. This means:
•Owners can judge how well the business is performing. Increased
profits improve the chances of directors being re-elected at the next
annual general meeting (AGM).
•Rivals can compare the amount of profit they are making with the
business.
•Pressure groups can find out about the environmental policy of
the business.

12. Finance Business Partnering
1. Interpreting, explaining and driving
performance
2. Industry, competitor and economic context
3. Advising on business planning
4. Influencing decisions
5. Analysis and insights

13. Any questions?