Introduction to Budgeting
Event summary
This introductory course will provide delegates with a fundamental knowledge for understanding budgeting. Delegates will gain a good basic understanding of how to set, monitor and report on their local service budgets. Delegates will learn how to identify and understand variances within their budget and how to provide more meaningful forecasts and monitoring information.
Date
18 October 2023
Starts: 09:45
Ends: 16:30
Location
Webinar
Standard price
£345.00 excl VAT
Network Member Price
£295.00 excl VAT
Book now
About this event
Who should attend?
The programme is aimed primarily at local authority budget holders and non-finance managers who have responsibility for the setting, forecasting, monitoring and reporting of local service budgets. It is an ideal introduction for someone new to managing budgets or new to the sector.
It may also be useful to finance support staff who are new to the role of supporting budget holders with the provision of forecasting information, and to more experienced non-financial budget holders as a refresher. However please note that as it is primarily aimed at non-finance managers it assumes no prior knowledge of finance and budgeting.
How you will benefit
Attendees will benefit from:
- A better understanding of budgetary control, variance analysis, ongoing budget monitoring and financial reporting
- An awareness of how to link budgets to service plans, how to identify and estimate future income and expenditure levels and how to build savings targets into a budget
- Practical examples of the different ways to build a budget, varying cost types, how to distinguish between net and gross income and expenditure and what to include and not to include in a budget
- A greater understanding of the different elements of their budgets and how to understand and interpret budgetary information.
Topics
- Accounting
- / Financial management
- / Local government
- / Medium term planning
- / Performance improvement and policy
- / Professional development
Speaker - Jennifer Bevan, Finance Advisory Network Advisor, CIPFA
Jennifer joined CIPFA in 2022 after working for seven years in local government. She is a CIPFA-qualified accountant who, for the past five years, has been working at Bury Metropolitan Council where she started as a revenue advisor in Public Health and Adult Social Care. From there she joined the authority's closedown and capital teams, with a particular focus on fixed assets and closure of capital accounts.
Her experience also includes working on a number of special projects including transformation, levelling up and land and property disposals scheme. As a CIPFA member, Jennifer is also an active volunteer within the CIPFA North West Region.