Hive Event

HS2 Programme is dynamic and evolving as it moves through various phases of construction through to the running of the new railway. HS2 Finance Team needs to respond to this by evolving to ensure it is supporting HS2 Programme strategic priorities.

In 2022, HS2 Finance began an ambitious transformation programme, Our Future Fit Finance (OFFF), to invest in our people, processes and digital capability. This focused on designing a fit for purpose organisation that maximised the value from finance business partnering and placed finance transactional activity together in one internal partnering team. The aim was to free up time from low to high value activities, improve and streamline ways of working and reduce silos, whilst also providing our people with the opportunity to enhance and develop their skills. Processes were simplified, standardised and automated to reduce the reliance of spreadsheets for planning, forecasting and reporting.

A Power BI financial reporting portal was established and a new financial forecasting system was implemented working with IT, HR, suppliers and stakeholders across HS2, integrated to source data from different systems and reporting systems to enable single version of truth reporting and self service, improved accuracy and great insight for decision making. In addition, a 5 Year Strategy for Finance has been created, using the Government Finance Function objectives as its framework ensuring alignment to wider GFF and ensuring HS2 Finance is supporting HS2 Programme in achieving its strategic priorities.

A presentation on the benefits that neurodiverse colleagues can bring to the Government Finance Function and the challenges they may face.

MHCLG has seen significant underspends in recent years – including underspends of c. 20% against capital grant budgets and c. 15% against Financial Transaction budgets in the years immediately before 23-24.  In response, the finance function put in place a wide range of interventions – working with the Executive Team to provide greater collective ownership and management of the financial position, working intensively with those areas whose forecasts were least reliable, improving the information collected from all business areas, upskilling Finance Business Partners and improving internal finance processes. We saw much better results last year - we were able to use better forecasting information to reallocate funding from infrastructure projects that were suffering delays to those that had capacity to deliver faster, and to maximise our ability to deliver on ministerial priorities with MHCLG’s 23-24 outturn within 1% of each of its budgets. This workshop is to discuss the interventions put in place – covering  work worked well, as well as what didn’t – and to share thoughts and ideas across departments on how further improvements to forecasting could be made.

Join us for an exciting session to learn about the Office for Value for Money (OVfM), announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in her speech on 29 July 2024. Since its inception, the OVfM team has been hard at work, launching initiatives and appointing an independent chair to drive their mission forward. Come along to hear about the work the OVfM has been doing as part of the spending review process and engaging stakeholders across government. This is also a great opportunity to share best practice from within your organisations with the OVfM team and other attendees.

Embrace experiential learning with FRC’s innovative work shadowing program. Based on the 70-20-10 learning rule, this program enhances knowledge-sharing across departments, providing hands-on exposure to different workflows, best practices, and professional growth opportunities—all at a fraction of traditional training costs. Discover how this program supports personal development, fosters collaboration, and offers valuable insights from experts across government departments. Join us to learn more about how work shadowing can accelerate your career.

Ongoing benchmarking of public sector organisations’ operating costs and models can drive continuous improvement in efficiency and performance. Cabinet Office has benchmarked the size and shape of six key back-office functions across the largest Arms’ Length Bodies (ALBs) across the UK.

The project aims to support these public bodies to ask questions about their operating models, and make comparisons to similar organisations in the running of their back-office functions. The data are accessible to the organisations in scope via interactive Tableau and Shiny dashboards.

In this session, we will cover what questions we sought to answer, how we developed the dashboards, what the results tell us so far, and the lessons we have learned along the way.

During this session attendees will learn about how MOD finance teams in Air Command and Navy Command are transforming their work using in-house digital development and automation.

By leveraging readily available tools such as Power BI, Power Apps and Power Automate, our teams have significantly improved data insights and day-to-day productivity without the need for external assistance and at negligible cost.

We will talk you through how our teams got to where they are now and offer practical advice for those looking to get started with similar digital transformation initiatives. In addition, we will showcase a few of our products to demonstrate how these dashboards, applications and automation have streamlined workflows and enhanced decision-making capabilities, minimising manual tasks and giving much-needed time back to finance staff.

This session introduces the concept of climate-related financial risk; the regulatory environment; provides practical advice for getting started and explores the benefits to be realised in the public sector

Experience the future of government finance, powered by AI. At the Government Finance Forum, witness the cutting-edge capabilities of Workday Illuminate. See how its AI-driven insights are revolutionizing decision-making, optimizing resources, and driving impactful outcomes across the public sector. Join us to discover real-world applications of Workday Illuminate and learn how AI can transform the future of public sector financial management.

An introduction to the Tax Centre of Excellence, covering its objectives and the services that it offers to the public sector. The session will also include a spotlight on some tax risks and topical tax compliance issues that are applicable to many public sector bodies.

Join us to find out more about what Spotlight does for public sector due diligence, our next development and a sneak peak into the Cabinet Offices new public procurement regime!

Effective leaders are essential to driving success and innovation in any team. Join our studio hosts for an exclusive interview with Gbenga Samuel, winner of the Leader of the Year award at 2024’s GFF Awards, to find out more about his approach, and how it felt to be recognised for the award.

DWP Finance Group (FG) is a critical enabler for DWP with a broad remit across multiple functions and professions. The group is responsible for c24% of the DWP Departmental Expenditure Limit of c£9.8bn spend.

The DWP FG Planning and Performance Team shaped, developed and implemented a systematic approach to rigorously strength test key controls across its functions in a proportionate manor in conjunction with DWP Risk and Resilience and Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA). Our work contributes directly to GIAA’s purpose of providing accounting officers with an objective assessment of how well their governance, risk management and internal controls are working. The model now implemented has been shared with groups across wider DWP and the Departmental Audit and Risk Assurance Committee.

In this interactive session DWP FG Planning and Performance will provide participants with:

• An insight into DWP Finance Group and its responsibilities
• An overview of how the team developed a framework enabling a proportionate assessment of controls within the function – including assessing controls that apply to all functions as well as those that are function specific.
• An explanation on how the framework is reviewed and assured by both 2nd and 3rd lines
• Their reflections and challenges in its development and implementation.
• A short exercise to use and complete an aspect of the framework
• The opportunity to engage beyond the session to share good practice with any interested areas.

Our team is part of His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals (HMCTS). Over recent years, we’ve developed analytical products that has allowed HMCTS to gain insights into the financial efficiency of our organisation, by bringing together financial and performance data.

The core focus of this work has been to understand and routinely report, the operational unit costs of the courts in the crown, magistrates, family, civil and tribunals services. Our team is a blend of financial professionals and analysts, which has proved to be a powerful and necessary combination of complimentary skill sets.

We will share how we have used this data to engage with senior leadership teams and operational managers, to promote a deeper awareness of and insight into operational efficiency. We’ve invested heavily in ensuring that complex efficiency data is accessible to a wide range of users, by making it visually attractive and delivered using PowerBI.

We believe we have enhanced the added value of the finance function, using data to move beyond the traditional focus on controlling spend against budget, into a deeper understanding of value for money, for a given level of output. Our analysis tracks efficiency trends over time, and we also benchmark relative efficiency between our operational regions.

The unit cost analysis of our reformed services was used extensively by the NAO reporting on the ‘Courts’ Reform Programme’, to measure if expected efficiencies from investing in the modernisation of the courts is being achieved. The ‘Government Efficiency Framework’ has also been an important driver for our work.

The case for improvement in public sector productivity has never been stronger and the opportunity has never been greater. A system wide approach is needed in which the right conditions and enablers of success are put in place, and within which departments and organisations can pursue step-changes in productivity. The starting point should be an aspiration to dramatically improve the quality of service delivery for citizens and implement productivity levers, including staff training, process streamlining, and tech adoption, to drive productivity gains at both the industry-wide improvement and organizational efficiency levels. Understanding these levers can empower civil servants to deliver better outcomes and drive greater value for money.

The Government Finance Function has an important role to play, driving the productivity agenda within their departments and their own functional operations. During this session at GFF 2025, we’ll explore 7 practical levers to drive government productivity and share insights from transformation programmes in the UK Government, international peers and the Private Sector.

This will be a session to look at the DWPs Hosting Strategy over recent years, starting with a successful project to exit an expensive external supplier. This involved building and running our own Datacentres which we call ‘On Premise Hosting’. We developed a Hybrid approach to Hosting by moving our large workloads into the Cloud which has many advantages not least in terms of cost. We then followed the cross government policy of ‘Cloud First’ which means that all new applications will be hosted on the cloud and older applications migrated, reducing the footprint in out owned datacentres. Finally we will talk about the impact of IFRS16 and the accounting treatment of our implicit leases.

Join us for an engaging and energising panel discussion featuring functional leaders from across government. Greater collaboration is central to the new GFF Strategy 2030 and as a finance community, it's paramount that we join forces with professionals across government to deliver unparalleled solutions for our customers. Engage with our panel through thought-provoking questions and discover what they see as the real opportunities to strengthen our relationships and fortify our collaborative efforts. Don’t miss this exclusive opportunity to ask your questions directly to the experts and be a part of the future of government finance!

We've all heard the phrase 'garbage in, garbage out,' and it's especially true with our finance data. We also know that the future of finance will involve more innovation and enhanced capabilities: but if we're feeding things like generative AI poor-quality data, we can't expect it to give us good results. High-quality, accurate finance data is essential to make the most of modern innovations and capabilities. This insight we get back is only good as the data quality we put in.

It needs to be accurate, consistent, and timely. When we have all these elements, our data becomes reliable, helping us make better decisions and manage resources effectively. But how exactly do we get this level of finance data? What does it mean to have ‘mature finance data’? Join us for this session where we will map out the opportunities of analytics tools and AI – but the data journey we need to go through to get there.

Join us for a one-hour session where we will talk through our finance data challenges and priority areas for improving its quality. This event will highlight the importance of having top-notch finance data and actionable steps to boost data maturity. There will be opportunity to discuss with colleagues, hear from experts, share experiences, and help shape our collective steps towards better finance data in government.

Consideration of risks should inform all investment decisions across government, but how does risk come into play when assessing value for money? And is the potential success or failure of policies, programmes and missions quite so binary… one or the other? This session will explore risk-adjusted value for money; the chances of different degrees of success or failure; and other tools available to help Finance Professionals apply a different perspective in your assessment approach.

Public services around the world continue to face unprecedented change and challenges, from new regulations and transforming work practices through to changes global ecomonies that continue to impact all facets of society.

Helping public finance professional respond to these challenges and prepare for the issues of tomorrow is core to CIPFA’s mission. We believe that lifelong learning is key to supporting a robust, resilient and ethical public finance profession. In this session we look at the key competencies to support the public sector finance professional today and into the future.

This session explores ACCA’s recent report on productivity in the public sector, looking specifically at the role of finance in improving productivity at every stage of public service delivery. Using practical insights from public sector finance professionals in the UK and other countries, as well as other research, the session will outline three key areas of focus: budget efficiency, organisational productivity and the effectiveness of outcomes. Join us as we help to make sense of what productivity means in a public sector context and how finance teams can support their organisations to deliver public value and better outcomes.

The Regional Finance Networks are one of our longest running and largest GFF communities. With groups based all over the UK, there is quite literally something for everyone! Our studio hosts sit down with some of the networks reps to find out more.

Significant investments in Cloud infrastructure have set the stage for Public Sector organisations to leapfrog into a world driven by data and AI. Implementing AI capabilities requires the establishment of a specialised incubation hub of expertise, uniquely positioning Shared Service Centres to become the epicentre for delivering key AI capabilities by virtue of their distinctive position within an organisation and extensive reach.

Harnessing AI has the potential to drive productivity, dismantle silos, foster interconnectivity, and instil agility. Join us in exploring the transformative potential that lies at the intersection of Shared Services, Cloud, and AI.

Too many accounting and finance processes rely on outdated technologies like excel spreadsheets. Find out more about readily available tactical solutions that can help you take the first steps towards the finance function of the future.

As we move into our second day, our studio hosts are joined by James McEwen and Conrad Smewing, Joint-Heads of the Government Finance Function, to find out how they’ve found getting used to their new, shared role, and what they’re looking forward to in 2025.

With colleagues delivering on risk, debt-management and internal audit, the GFF has always been broader than just finance. Join our studio hosts for an interview with Jeff Smith, winner of the Iain Rolland Award for Outstanding Contribution to Internal Audit, on the importance of internal audit and finance working together, and lessons learnt from across Jeff’s career.

Jump on board for a journey with rail finance from a time when stable rail franchises meant rail companies were focused on minimal subsidy or highest premium through a pandemic which required immediate action to keep services operating and changed the government’s focus to a future of public ownership and Great British Railways.

Learn how the Department for Transport’s interest in the rail businesses changed, requiring more commercially focused teams and standardised reporting, with significant changes to the risk profile. How have new insights improved forecasting on a budget with costs of £12bn and revenues of £10bn, and led to improved confidence in the numbers and how this has helped address the significant financial challenges faced.

We’ll look at how the industry is different today than it was in the past, and how improved reporting and data collection and consolidation is informing decisions relating to the future public ownership of rail services and the transition to Great British Railways.

Would you know how to find $1 million in cash overnight and move it into a war zone? Or get funding to a partner where banks fear to tread?

During a global crisis, Finance can play a key role in HMG’s mission to keep British Nationals safe and maintain departmental operations. Learn more about how FCDO finance has evolved our crisis response to deliver practical solutions on the ground so that vital payments can continue to be made when financial systems are collapsing and navigating many novel and contentious issues in very challenging situations. When time is of the essence, FCDO Finance supports our consular and policy colleagues by providing robust advice to our Accounting Officers and working alongside colleagues in HM Treasury and the international Departments.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to understand the fast-paced and lifesaving nature of our work!

From the award winning Corporate Systems team at HMLR we want to show how we have invested in our ERP system to improve the both the service we provide our customers and the impact it has made to their teams. ERP systems can be seen as a burden but we have focussed on how a ERP system can support frontline workers and help to improves HMLR’s productivity.

We want to talk about our successes but also the challenges we have faced to get the organisation to recognises "what corporate systems can do for you!". Some of our successes include;

• Allowing for over 95% of all invoices to be automatically paid out by HMLR equating to over 10,000 invoices with no manual intervention
• Reducing the average time taken to fix service requests (SR) by over 5 days per SR
• Pro-actively working with Oracle to save HMLR over £1m through cost avoidance by streamlining HMLR use of fusion licenses
• Freeing up over 100 FTE hours per week for front line workers to concentrate on caseworkers
• Allowing for the re-deployment of 1.5 FTE accounts payable staff to other activities
• Reducing the headcount of the corporate systems teams by over 3FTE whilst improving services
• Reducing the number of HR service desks calls by over 50% through self services systems

Be Future-Ready Today: Essential for Every current and aspiring FBP

The GFF vision for FBP’s continues to be at the heart of decision making with a vital role in aligning business and finance agendas. We know that new technologies will transform not only what FBP’s do, but also how, when and where they do it.

This will be an interactive session aimed at developing understanding of and encouraging the adoption of new technologies that might enable FBPs to add greater value and perform better in their role as Business Experts and Financial Advisors. We will provide an overview of new technologies including benefits and drawbacks and link this to the GFF FBP model. We will also bring to this to life with some case studies and a session that will enable participants to experience the potential benefits for themselves.

The session will conclude by looking forward to gain a collective understanding of what we can do next to really leverage the benefits that are potentially available and enable FBP’s to strengthen their Influential Voice.

Interested in getting an insight into other cultures? Curious about how differences between UK culture and other cultures can impact a team member's GFF experience? Analysis of the 2023 People Survey data showed that 17% of the GFF population is from an ethnic minority group; regardless of whether they grew up in the UK, by virtue of their ethnic background, some of these colleagues are likely to have been influenced by a non-UK culture. This session will increase your cultural awareness and provide tips on cultural inclusion based on research and the lived experience of various colleagues. Join us for an interactive session led by Rupinder Dhillon (Race Lead, Defra Finance) and Grace Nkeshimana.

In a tripartite deal with the US and the UK, Australia has unveiled a plan to acquire a fleet of up to eight nuclear-powered submarines. Come and meet the team who started the study of how this could be possible and ended with a joint announcement with the Prime Minister, the US President, and the Australian Prime Minister to collaboratively support Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. We will take you through the joint approach used to solve this unique problem, why the three nations stand at an inflection point in history and the partnership they have forged, with Australia making the biggest single investment in their defence capability in their history. We can explain the different accounting policies, judgements, techniques and authorisations required across three different governments to share costs and ensure that the programme could be commenced on schedule, as well as the mistakes we made along the way.

Join Ben McCrorie, Cabinet Office Deputy Director, as he discusses why processes should be a concern and how the Cabinet Office use Process Intelligence to drive transformation across digital services. Joined by Celonis VP & Country Leader UK&I Rupal Karia, Ben will also talk about the initial stage of work to improve the efficiency of its internal processes, including the transformation of its shared service centres.

Join us to discover how Workday is empowering the Matrix cluster and shaping the future of government through AI and innovation.

This session explores how Workday’s AI-powered solutions are transforming the way the public sector works. Discover how innovative approaches to procurement and HR are not only meeting the current demands of the Matrix cluster, their ALBs but also paving the way for the future of government.

• AI-driven solutions: See how Workday leverages AI to optimise processes, enhance decision-making, and drive greater efficiency across the Government.
• Future-proof technology: Learn how Workday’s solutions are designed to adapt and evolve, ensuring the Matrix and the ALBs remain at the forefront of innovation.
• Government-wide impact: Understand how the successes within the Matrix can be applied across the whole of government, creating a more agile and effective public sector.

We all think we know what good public financial management looks like but what does it mean in practical terms? The public sector tackles many complex and interconnected challenges – in recent years we have seen the impact of funding reductions, rising and shifting patterns of demand for services and external shocks such a a global pandemic. Whatever the difficulties public bodies need to keep delivering and financial professionals must focus on continuity to ensure their organisation can continue to provide vital services to their citizens and communities.

In this session we go back to basics and get under the skin of the importance of robust financial model and how it can help you and your teams in your daily function and ultimately to support the people you serve better.

We will explore how digital technologies are fundamentally reshaping the Internal Audit landscape. We'll delve into the practical applications and benefits of:
Data Analytics: Unlocking insights from vast datasets to enhance risk assessment, identify anomalies, and drive audit efficiency.
Automation: Streamlining repetitive tasks, freeing up auditors to focus on higher-value activities like strategic analysis and risk mitigation.
Generative AI: Exploring the potential of AI tools to revolutionise audit procedures, from audit planning to report generation.

The Head of the GFF Award recognises a team or individual who has significantly contributed to making a visible difference within the GFF during their career to date. 2024’s winner was Kathryn Wearmouth, and in this interview we’ll find out more about what winning the award meant to them.

Every great finance leader starts somewhere, and for apprentices, the journey to leadership in Government is full of opportunities to grow, learn, and make a difference. This session will look at the career pathways available in Government to finance apprentices highlighting the knowledge, skills and behaviours that will be developed and the experiences needed to progress from a junior role to a leadership position.

Gareth Davies, Comptroller and Auditor General, head of the National Audit Office discusses the NAO’s work with the Government Finance Function.

GFF Trainee of the Year award winner Paul Gallagher rounds off our conference interview series. Covering how it felt to win the award, the importance of recognising our colleagues and what Paul has planned next, this is one not to miss!

Ahead of his keynote on the final day of the event, Duncan Brown, Head of Software Engineering at the Incubator for AI, gives us a sneak peek at the topics he’s going to cover.

The National Audit Office has developed a series of good practice guides on good financial management in government. The first guide enablers of success gives an overarching view of the key areas finance professionals should prioritise. Since then, the series has focussed on important stages of the financial management lifecycle: strategic planning and budgeting, allocating resources, and monitoring and forecasting.

We have zoned in on why these are critical areas for the finance community to get right. We’ll tell you what good looks like, and what actions you can take to position yourself in the best possible way to deal with the challenges of the future. These insights are all based on what nearly 50 finance leaders across government departments and ALBs told us. We’ve also drawn on lessons from our vast back catalogue of value-for-money work. This gives us a unique perspective – so we can share with you the common challenges faced by government when it comes to financial management.

Join this interactive workshop to see our good practice guides brought to life and how they can help you in practice. Hear from the authors first-hand on why they think leadership and culture, skills and capabilities, and data and technology are so crucial to financial management. And we want to hear from you! Breakout sessions will give you the opportunity to chat with others about the issues we have identified - and how these can be overcome.

In this session we will highlight the importance of central data science teams in departments, and how it supports GFF’s vision for innovation. We will run through the team structure of HMT’s Data Hub, their operational model, and how they have deployed cutting-edge data science, data engineering and AI tools to create more efficient ways of working across the organisation, cutting down on manual processes and enabling staff to access, analyse and report data thought modern platforms and innovative practices. We will then touch on how the Hub’s roll-out of bespoke staff training across the department and the impact this has had on how data-driven teams handle and interact with data, with demonstrable cashable savings and smarter ways of working than ever before.

Prepare to elevate your capabilities, excel in your roles, and evolve with the future of finance. Join GFF People & Capability Team for an interactive, informative, and inspiring session where we encourage everyone to:

• Evolve: Understand the key skills for the future within the Government Finance Function and their alignment with the refreshed GFF strategy in an evolving function. Hear insights on how this will impact our finance professionals as they grow and evolve within their roles.
• Elevate: Understand how to maximise use of the GFA curriculum, hear about the exciting L&D strategy, and be signposted to other complementary platforms (e.g. CDDO)
• Excel: Build confidence and celebrate your strengths by self-assessing your technical skills and recognise the growing importance of specific inter-personal and human skills as enablers as you seek to map out your journey to excel within the Finance Function.

You will leave with a dynamic mix of insights, practical strategies, and interactive discussions tailored to the unique challenges and opportunities within the finance function to help you with learning and skills focused on the future.

In recent years, HMPPS has faced several challenges from staffing shortages; management of COVID; organised crime and gangs in prisons, and increased supply and use of drugs. Most recently there has been insufficient prison places available to meet demand and legislation was required to allow for early release of offenders. Find out more about what it is like to FBP in the prison environment.

This session will explain more about HMPPS and how the FBP team supports operational stakeholders. Relationship building is key, with FBPs included in the leadership team of the sites they support. Increasingly FBPs are using a broader range of data to help stakeholders. For example, benchmarking across similar prisons to compare costs such as food, utilities and identify best practice. Performance data is being used to better understand how spending patterns influence performance outcomes. Within the team, there is a drive to automate reports and make greater use of Microsoft Power BI to manage data.

Join the GFF Finance Performance and Improvement team for a dynamic live demonstration of our innovative software. This session will showcase how real-time analytics can identify operational blockers and optimise processes across industries.

With the Spending Review ongoing, it has never been more important for the government to get the most out of every pound of public money. In October 2024 the NAO reported on the eight lessons from its work that the government needs to address, if it is to improve efficiency and productivity and deliver value for taxpayers’ money. In this session the NAO team will set out what they found and what they learned about the incentives and behaviours embedded across central government that need to change. In discussion we will ask participants to share good practice and learning and the results will be fed back to the centre of government as part of an action plan for change.

In an increasingly volatile world, what is the impact on finance professionals in government, and what role do they play in responding to these challenges? What can we do today to secure a better tomorrow? Join Baringa's experts to discuss innovation across areas such as tooling, talent, and transformation.

In today’s turbulent environment, Corporate Services functions, including Finance, have never been more important. In the face of technological disruption, increasing regulation, fast-changing customer needs and a competitive talent market, Corporate Services have a vital role to play in supporting businesses and providing a platform for growth. For every external market force, there is an internal organisational opportunity, from embracing AI and automation, responding faster to regulatory change, to rethinking the employee experience. The future of Corporate Services should involve shared services connecting across the core value streams of the business – unlocking end-to-end cost efficiencies, innovation and growth. In this session we will focus on how Corporate Services can act in a collective and integrated manner to enable organisations to thrive amidst uncertainty.

Did you know that Central U.K. Government spends approximately £37B on goods and services a month? All the more reason why demonstrating value for taxpayer money has become a defining priority for government departments. And you, being part of the Government Finance Function have a pivotal role as gatekeepers. What if you could have full visibility of how taxpayer money is spent, and follow the money? Process intelligence has emerged as an indispensable tool for providing this very visibility and enhancing operational efficiency within government finance functions. Join me as we explore how U.K. Government departments are realising these benefits -- right now.