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Winter 2013
INTOUCHThe National Audit Office Alumni Newsletter
Sharing skills
2 | INTOUCH
You may at this point be asking, a new editor – so who is this? Who indeed? When the opportunity to edit InTouch came up I can fairly say I jumped at it. As many of you will have had occasion to notice, a couple of years ago the Institute decided that Accountancy magazine was just too exciting
and so engaged in a major rebranding to make it a lot duller. So I thought – can we reproduce such success here?
First, some background. I have been at the NAO for (what seems like) a long time, though not nearly so long as some. I can remember Units, the old early-80s décor of BPR, and the dartboard in the basement. I am not enough of a veteran to remember the introduction of resource accounting, though. At various times, I have served the NAO in a lot of capacities, and some of them are listed in the article on the back page. I should also mention my favourite obscure audit achievement: I audited the last account ever prepared, to my knowledge, by a UK central government body under Lady Day accounting (i.e. with a March 25th year end). If anyone knows better, please write in.
In the words of my esteemed predecessor, that’s enough about me. The big programme working its way through the office this year is transformation (see page 11). As part of this we also have a new skills strategy for the NAO. The theme of the articles in this issue is how we – and by implication the public sector more widely – develop the skills we need to achieve the levels of performance that Parliament will demand in the future. Under transformation, skills requirements are very much a cluster responsibility, and the conversations we’ve been having at cluster level make it clear that much, perhaps most, skills development happens on the job, rather than in formal settings. This is true for technical skills and especially for the softer skills which are going to be so important going forward. So we’ve collected a cluster (see what I did there?) of articles that relate to this theme, which will hopefully set up our December alumni get-together nicely. See you there, I hope.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Alumni Team who all contributed to this issue: Caroline Casey, Santosh Gora, Sarah Harriss, Emily Hopkinson, Juliana Smith, Sarah Threapleton, Robert Trevett and Rebecca Webb.
Stephen Kingston
Christmas party timeNAOSSA London Christmas Party 2013Alumni members are invited to attend the London NAOSSA Christmas Party on Thursday 19 December at Buckingham Palace Road. The party will start with welcome cocktails, food and charity game show stalls. There will also be karaoke rooms, live music, a DJ and a photo booth.
Alumni who were members of NAOSSA on departure from the office are entitled to a free ticket. Tickets for non-NAOSSA members are £15. Tickets entitle you to all the fun and food, plus three drinks.
Please RSVP to [email protected] for a ticket, confirming your NAOSSA membership status.
NAOSSA Christmas kids Party NAOSSA are hosting the Children’s Christmas Party on Sunday 12 January 2014 from 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm in the Auditorium. The party will start with food and refreshments, followed by an entertainer for the toddlers and younger children, and for children in and around school age, the Globe Players will be putting on a performance of the Sleeping Beauty, which will last about an hour. Each child will be given a party bag at the end to take home.
The children of all staff, including those on maternity leave or career break, are welcome to come along, and the children of NAO alumni members are also invited. Those staff who are members of NAOSSA, or who have made payments to NAOSSA in 2013 may attend the party for free, but all those attending will need to register for an e-ticket. Non-NAOSSA members will be asked to make a small contribution to an e-ticket (£6 per child or £10 per family). Please bring some treats to share such as homemade cakes, biscuits, crisps, breadsticks, etc.
You can register for e-tickets by emailing [email protected]
Welcome
Design and Production by NAO Communications © National Audit Office 2013 Printed by SLS Print | DP Ref: 10291-001
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NAO staff have, for some years now, been contributing to the local community in Victoria/Pimlico by taking part in a volunteering scheme to help children in primary schools with their reading. We are currently working with two schools: St. Gabriel’s and St. Barnabas. Volunteers (currently there are 34) – represent most grades in the office up to, and including, executive leaders. They each read fortnightly.
Both schools are very happy about our volunteers. One school wanted to increase the number of children taking part, but in the current circumstances NAO lacks the capacity to meet increased demand.
Going forward, the schools want to add maths tutoring also. Much as some of us would hesitate, some people, especially the trainees, would actually prefer doing this to reading. This would bring more of a classroom feel to the role.
InTouch interviewed some of the current group of volunteer readers, and they all found the experience very satisfying – if occasionally challenging. One volunteer said: “You really notice how much the children gain in confidence. Their vocabulary expands and they learn new skills.” Another commented: “The boys are harder work than the girls, especially when reading clashes with football.”
At the end of last term some of the pupils made cards for their readers. Here’s a quote from one of the cards: “Thank you so much for reading with me this year! You are a star!”
NEWCASTLE OFFICE MOVEThe NAO’s Newcastle office moved into new premises in the city centre close to Central Station on Monday 11 November.
SEPTEMBER 2013 GRADUATE RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGNThe NAO welcomed 61 new trainees to its highly competitive Graduate Scheme – 50 graduates and 11 ATTs were chosen from over 1,000 applicants. The 2014 scheme is now open, and we are visiting graduate fairs across the country including Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick, Durham, Manchester and London.
NAO’S FIRST APPRENTICESHIP SCHEME IN ASSOCIATION WITH SOUTH THAMES COLLEGEThe scheme has provided four local school leavers with the opportunity to study for an NVQ Level 2 in Business Administration for 12 months while gaining valuable on-the-job experience.
ALUMNI EVENTThe next Alumni Networking Event will take place on 11 December, with a debate on the topic of skills – email [email protected] to RSVP.
ICAEW MEMBERSHIPThe September 2010 cohort is currently in the process of applying for membership with the ICAEW.
CERTIFICATE OF APPRECIATION FROM THE CHARITY FOR CIVIL SERVANTSThe Charity for Civil Servants has sent a certificate of appreciation for a generous donation of £774.80 raised by Book Events throughout 2012 on their behalf.
School reading scheme
What’s happening at the NAO?
} You really notice how much the children gain in confidence. Their vocabulary expands and they learn new skills ~
The NAO & beyond
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Recently, several colleagues moved on to pastures new. Just before they left, we spoke to four of them about their time at the NAO and plans for the future.
RAHINI MYLVAGANAM34 years’ service at NAO
How has the NAO changed since you first started?When I joined the Exchequer and Audit Department (pre-NAO) we didn’t have audit plans or audit programmes. We were asked to audit subheads/votes and only had Government Accounting (now Managing Public Money) and an audit manual, so had to work things out for ourselves. Also, we didn’t have a large HQ. We had two small HQs, Audit House and Tavis House, but most of us were based at client offices.
Things seem very different now! Is anything the same?In 1989-90, I worked on a VfM study on debt collection at the Inland Revenue. The Chair of the Inland Revenue stood up at the PAC to say that the Inland Revenue should merge with HM Customs and Excise. Twenty years on and it’s finally happened. I’m not sure we can really attribute that to our original study, but it was important work, and interesting to see the progress, though some of the same issues are still there today.
The NAO transformation programme brings back some of ways we used to work like having more responsibility and a more diverse portfolio of work.
What are your plans now you’re leaving?Mostly relaxing, gardening and visiting my family. I’d like to help out with charities as well, using the skills I’ve picked up at the NAO, perhaps volunteering as a trustee or school governor.
And finally, what will you miss about the NAO?I’ve really enjoyed working with the Ethnic Minority Network. We’ve seen changes since the group started, and that’s very positive. Being on the Diversity Delivery Board I could see that there is good commitment from senior management to have a fair and diverse office, but there’s still important work to be done translating this into reality. I will miss the people and I look forward to seeing the Network and Office achieving more.
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PAULA WESTALL16 years’ service at NAO
What’s your best memory of the NAO? There are loads – and all revolve around the people. Sometimes I think all the nicest people in the world end up at the NAO. When my intake went to the ICAEW to get our certificates once we qualified it was the first time most of us had been together since college and what a wonderful way to have a reunion. We had a ten-year reunion a few years ago and I hope there will be more.
What’s been your oddest work moment? I once found myself locked in a client’s premises late one evening and had to call the police to be let out. Immediately after I called 999 I bumped into a cleaner who helped me ‘escape’. I had to make an official statement in the morning to explain myself.
Which project you’ve worked on do you think has had the biggest impact? In terms of impact, I think probably the audit of the newly rolled-out military pay system. This led to back-to-back qualifications of the MoD resource account and helped make sure the MoD worked to improve the poor controls they (hadn’t!) implemented.
What next? What will you do after you leave? I have no immediate plans. I’m in the fortunate position to not have to work again if I don’t want to. I only know one thing for sure – what I won’t be doing is coming back as a financial audit temp next summer, so don’t even think about asking me!
DEAN PARKER10 years’ service at NAO
What work have you found the most interesting?Being private secretary to Sir John Bourne gave me a real insight into what was going on across the office and at the PAC. It was also great getting to do some international travel.
What sort of places did you get to visit with Sir John? We went to all sorts of places. For me, the most interesting were in the former Soviet Republic. I think sometimes we take for granted that we have an independent, well-respected National Audit Office. And that only really struck me when we were working to help audit offices establish themselves over in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
You must have some good stories…Well, I suppose the most memorable was being presented with a cooked sheep’s head in Kazakhstan. Apparently this was a great honour, but it smelled terrible. We picked around and ate as much as we could, but it was a real struggle!
Is there anything you’ll miss about the NAO?I’ll miss the people. I guess that’s what everyone says, but it’s definitely true. Also, I’m very interested in current affairs, and it’s great to switch on the radio and hear a voice you recognise from the office.
And what won’t you miss?I definitely won’t miss the routine. I’m looking forward to having more flexibility and being able to spend more time with my six-year-old daughter.
What are your plans from here?Things are by no means set in stone, but I’ve got a few plans. I’d like to take on a non-executive director role and be on an audit committee. Also, I often hear from clients that they’d like some form of audit committee training but can’t find anyone to deliver it. I think there might be room for a business in that, so watch this space!
WENDY COLLISTER26 years’ service at NAO
What’s your favourite thing about the NAO?I made some life-long friends at the NAO – some truly lovely people.
How has the NAO changed over the course of your career?It has become more professional and the standard of our work is top-notch. When I joined, we didn’t even have computers. I can’t imagine how we ever coped with all those Working Paper Folders. I remember driving to Harwich on a Sunday to audit the lighthouse fund, via BPR to pick up a boot full of working paper folders and accounting guidance, and then picking up various members of the audit team on the way.
What next? What will you do after you leave?I am planning to set up my own pet-sitting and dog-walking business called Ginger’s Cats and Dogs. First I’ll train to become a registered pet-sitter, which will give me a good grounding in how to set up and run the business and also the practical side of things such as pet first aid. I’ll also be helping out at my local pet rescue centre. That way I can do something good while also getting some valuable hands-on experience for my own business.
That sounds like quite a change from audit!Yes, it will be a massive change in lifestyle for me, and I’m very much looking forward to the new challenge. Saying that, I’ve picked up a lot from the NAO which I think will really help – organisational skills, client service and of course a good grip of the finances.
Obituaries
David GaleDavid Gale, a long serving club member and active in the club’s golden age of track and field died in January this year.
He was a member of the club’s highly successful track team of the late 1950’s and 1960’s which was captained by Norman Page. Members of this team were known as Page’s Panthers and it is sad to report that another Panther has run his last race.
Born on January 31st 1935, David was educated at Haberdasher Aske’s and joined the club in 1955 after doing two years national service in the Royal Air Force. Just before going to Aske’s he had meningitis and was on the danger list for weeks, and was warned not to play sport because of possible head injuries. After a row with his mother he agreed not to play rugby but to concentrate on athletics. He was a member of the school team that won the London schools title at White City and as a scout was the key boy in his troop winning the London championships.
David was a talented, versatile athlete who was very competitive on the track but also sociable off it. A six-foot high jumper, twenty-three foot long jumper, triple jumper, hurdler and sprinter. Such versatility meant that as a team player he could cover many events during a competition. Winter track training facilities in the 1950’s were scarce especially in the evenings after work when all the tracks were closed. David was one of those members who used to climb over the fence at the Ladywell track to train in the dark, the only light coming from the passing trains that ran alongside the track!
He was a Civil Servant working in the Exchequer and Audit Department which enabled him to compete in the Civil Service Championships where he won and broke both the 100 yards and high jump records, and was a member of the Civil Service team. His job eventually took him to Bath and then for 10 years to work for the Crown Agency in the Solomon Islands. Whilst there he was the manager of the Solomon Islands athletic team, and to the surprise of the locals competed as well.
Alumni member Brian Sanders kindly forwarded an obituary for David Gale, with whom he worked at the Exchequer and Audit Department in the 1950s.
Brian felt that this obituary, published in the Blackheath and Bromley Harriers Gazette, is a ‘well rounded record of a remarkable man’, and so with kind permission from the editor we have reproduced it in full.
Fred WomackBack in July we received a touching letter from Mrs Ruth Williams to tell us that her father Fred Womack had sadly passed away. He had been retired for 33 years from what was then the Exchequer and Audit Department, and Mrs Williams said that he thoroughly enjoyed his work, made many friends and always looked back on his working life with pleasure. She added that her father enjoyed his retirement and “had the gift of being content and finding the best in everybody and everything.”
Our thanks to John Lissaman and Wilf Orton of the Blackheath & Bromley Harriers AC.
On returning home he competed for many years in veteran athletics and in 1978 he was top of the UK Veterans Ranking List in the under 45’s for both the 110m hurdles and the long jump. It is a mark of what a fine athlete he was that at his death he still held six of the club’s veteran records although he had not competed for 25 years.
David was a larger than life character who did not understand ‘I can’t do that’ or complain; he just got on with life. He loved a beer with his friends with lots of fun and laughter and a game of darts, a game at which he was most proficient. An avid traveller who had travelled the world, he claimed he had been to every country beginning with each letter of the alphabet apart from ‘X’.
He had a fighting spirit which outdid most people and made him a force to be reckoned with in competition. He fought cancer for a long time.
His wife Brenda predeceased him and we send our sympathy to his three children and the rest of the family.
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Were you here in ‘83?In this issue we have heard mention of the NAO’s previous incarnation, the Exchequer and Audit Department (E&AD). While many colleagues that were here in those days are sadly no longer with us, we know there are still some of you out there who are very much alive and kicking, and must have some interesting stories to tell.
With a transformation programme currently being implemented within the NAO, we wondered how many alumni members were here in 1983, when the E&AD became the NAO.
We would love to hear your recollections of that time of major change. For example:
zz How did the changes affect you and your colleagues?zz What was it like moving into the new offices at
Buckingham Palace Road? zz Did you notice many changes to the way the NAO went
about its business as compared to before?
Please email us with your memories of this time, and we will compile these into an article for the next issue of the magazine.
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Secondments have always been used in the office for a variety of reasons from strategic to personal development. Outward secondments give our partners the opportunity to benefit from the skills that NAO staff have, as well as providing the opportunity for NAO staff to gain experience and develop skills that benefit the Office on their return. Inward secondments bring new skills and experience to the NAO and closer contacts with the secondee’s employer. Sharing the skills that secondees bring to the NAO across the Office is crucial for the NAO to reap the maximum benefits from secondment arrangements. One of the executive leaders (Ed Humpherson) recently blogged about how we can maximise the use and benefit of secondments in the transformed NAO.
The outward secondee Paul OliffePaul was seconded to the Home Office, spending two years as Head of Performance and Resources at the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism. Effectively his role was Finance Director of Counter-Terrorism.
Paul felt like it was the right time to go on secondment, as he had just been promoted to Director but had not yet been allocated to an area.
The secondment
The Office of Security and Counter- Terrorism is a standalone part of the Home Office sealed off from the rest of the organisation. Paul was there during the Olympics which was particularly interesting and a litmus test of the performance of the unit. There had been heavy investment in the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism since 9/11.
As part of his role, Paul also sat on a number of finance and risk committees within the Home Office, including:
z the senior finance team;
z the risk committee;
z Group Investment Board; and
z financial management steering groups.
In this way he used skills developed at the NAO to help hold the rest of the Home Office to account.
How this secondment came about
Paul did not have any experience of the Home Office before his secondment, having been based in the Ministry of Defence area prior to his promotion to Director. The NAO had been approached by the Home Office to ask whether we had someone suitable for the role, and the Leadership Team asked Paul whether he was interested. The Home Office had also advertised the position externally and Paul took part in an open competition for the post.
Skills developed
The role of the NAO is to audit departments. However, it is a very different skill to put the theory into practice. Paul developed his skills in:
z financial management;
z deploying theory in practice;
z influencing stakeholders;
z managing and leading teams that are structured very differently to the NAO – there was great diversity within Paul’s team with some roles very defined while others were less so; and
z developing a greater understanding of the wider political environment in which departments function.
Transferable skillsWe spoke to Paul Oliffe, who has recently returned from a secondment with the Home Office, and Elisabeth Slaatbraten and Steve Williams, who are both on secondment with the NAO, to get their views on how their skills and experiences have translated to a different organisation and what they and the NAO are doing to make the most of the skills and experiences that they bring.
Paul Oliffe
Elisabeth Slaatbraten
Steve Williams
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} the office has encouraged me to build internal and external communities that support this sharing. The IT auditors’ grouping is a great example of this ~
Deploying and sharing skills
It was a very good time for Paul to return to the NAO while it is changing. He is finding the skills he developed at the Home Office useful as a Director in a cluster, managing a wider range of staff and fulfilling a development role. He is also finding it useful to consider the political environment that departments work in when framing our work and recommendations.
Paul is sharing his experience of the Home Office more widely by liaising with the areas of the NAO that deal with the Home Office. He is sharing his wider skills through the Audit Manager forum. He is also planning to prepare a knowledge note to share his learning with all NAO staff.
The inward secondees Elisabeth SlaatbratenWhat is the length of your secondment at the NAO?
Six months, from 1 September 2013 to 28 February 2014.
What’s your main role at the Office of the Auditor General of Norway (OAGN)?
z Deputy Director General
z Financial audit
z Portfolio: the Norwegian equivalent to DWP
What’s your main role at the NAO?
z Auditor/analyst
z DWP – VfM, financial audit and IT audit
How does your role and work at the Norwegian Audit Office differ from your role and work here – and how is the NAO making use of your experience and sharing this experience more widely?
Apart from the obvious – operational level, not management – there are few differences, so it’s reassuringly similar. The NAO comes across as a well-managed organisation with hard-working and open minded people, who emphasise the importance of continuous development. Welcoming and facilitating secondments is one example of how the organisation is taking a proactive role in this.
Secondments help both the host unit and the home unit gain a better understanding of the approaches and best practices developed and used by others. Furthermore, it creates every-day arenas for sharing experience, networking opportunities and inspires cross-border cooperation.
A few examples of fields in which NAO is making use of my experience and vice versa:
z NAO and OAGN both apply international auditing standards, and discussions among peers provide mutual insight. Audit competence has no borders, neither does excellence.
z Both organisations are facing change. NAO is well under way in a transformation programme, while OAGN is finalising their strategic plan for the coming four years, outlining organisational adaptation and new approaches.
z A hands-on approach within a chosen audit portfolio provides opportunities to discuss strategic choices in the perspective of both our offices’ business plans, methodological finesse and practical solutions, for example, overall audit approach, cooperation and coordination between financial audit and VfM teams.
z Both organisations have knowledgeable and service-minded staff within administration, HR and ICT who aim to streamline in-house procedures. Secondment
arrangements provide opportunities to pick up on areas of improvement within existing operations and reflect on approaches to induction and training for example.
Steve Williams Steve has been seconded to the NAO from Moore Stephens.
What is the length of your secondment at the NAO?
Two years.
What’s your main role at Moore Stephens?
I set up and ran the IT assurance practice – covering consultancy, internal audit and external audit – whatever could go wrong with technology did!
What’s your main role at the NAO?
I joined to direct our approach to IT audit in support of financial audit.
How is your experience from Moore Stephens relevant and useful in your role at the NAO?
They are similar organisations in terms of size. The most relevant experience was in trying to develop an IT assurance capability across multiple industry groups – this was very similar to our current transformation programme.
How is the office making use of your experience and sharing your experience with the wider office?
Everyone I have met at the office seems pretty keen to learn new things. When I joined I put a lot of time into meeting as many people as possible. Now I get a lot of questions!
More strategically, the office has encouraged me to build internal and external communities that support this sharing. The IT auditors’ grouping is a great example of this.
10 | INTOUCH
Recent reports
Severance and wider benefits for senior BBC managersHC 685, 2013-14
The savings the BBC has made from senior manager redundancies exceed the cost of severance payments, according to our report for the BBC Trust. However, we found that the BBC has breached its own policies on severance too often and without good reason, exceeded contractual entitlements and put public trust at risk.
The report concluded that the severance payments for BBC managers have therefore provided poor value for money.
Maternity services in England HC 794, 2013-14
“NHS maternity services provide good outcomes and positive experiences for most women during a very important time in their lives. Since the Department of Health’s 2007 strategy, there have been improvements in maternity services, but the variation in performance across the country, and our findings on how services are being managed, demonstrate there is substantial scope for further improvement. The Department’s implementation of its strategy has not matched its ambition.”
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 8 November 2013
Universal Credit: early progressHC 621, 2013-14
“The Department’s plans for Universal Credit were driven by an ambitious timescale, and this led to the adoption of a systems development approach new to the Department. The relatively high risk trajectory was not, however, matched by an appropriate management approach. Instead, the programme suffered from weak management, ineffective control and poor governance. Universal Credit could well go on to achieve considerable benefits if the Department learns from these early setbacks and puts realistic plans and strong discipline in place for its future roll-out.”
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 5 September 2013
Government interventions to support future retirement incomesHC 536, 2013-14
Government measures to reduce the liability of the state for supporting people in their retirement are being managed separately, without adequate consideration of their combined impact on the overall objective of increasing retirement incomes. According to this NAO report, there is no overarching programme or single accountability for encouraging people to save for retirement.
The Treasury leads on overall savings strategy, and DWP on workplace saving but, without a whole system view, the NAO believes there is a risk that individual, but co-dependent, interventions may not be effective in increasing saving for retirement.
Food safety and authenticity in the processed meat supply chainHC 685, 2013-14
An NAO report has found that, while arrangements for identifying and testing for risks to food safety are relatively mature and effective, similar arrangements for the authenticity of food are not. Government failed to identify the possibility of adulteration of beef products with horsemeat despite indications of heightened risk.
According to our report, a split in responsibilities for food policy between the Food Standards Agency and two Whitehall departments in 2010 has led to confusion among stakeholders about the role of the Agency and Defra in responding to food authenticity incidents.
An Agency review found that some of their staff and local authorities were confused, during the early stages of the response to the January 2013 incident, about why the Agency was taking the lead in investigating the incident. Local authorities said they continue to be unclear on whom to contact in certain areas of food policy.
The Border Force: securing the border HC 540, 2013-14
“The Department has placed greater demands on the Border Force, which has successfully implemented full passenger checks and reduced queuing times. It has achieved this progress by focusing on a subset of its full range of responsibilities. The Border Force now needs to show it can apply the lessons learned from its successes to date across its full range of activities to ensure the security of the border. The Department needs to fund it to do so.”
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 4 September 2013
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You may ask why we are making these changes. We are in a strong position at the moment – our strategy over the last four years has secured significant impact at lower cost, and we are viewed positively by the bodies we audit and by Parliament. We think this is a great basis on which to make changes to the way we work, so that we can increase the impact of our work.
The public bodies that we audit are more stretched than ever before – both by financial pressures and by reform. This has exposed substantial skills gaps across government in areas that we have or will develop expertise in, which could be applied to good effect.
Feedback from the bodies we audit indicates a real appetite for the NAO to play a role in cross-government learning and providing comparative information. And feedback from Parliament indicates an appetite for swifter assurance. Through transforming the NAO we will add more value to those we audit and we will provide more timely assurance to Parliament.
So what’s changing at the NAO?We have already grouped our audit teams into six ‘clusters’. Each is focused on a key strategic issue that is shared by a cluster of bodies that we audit. Clusters will be well placed to develop expertise and share our knowledge on the issue and to develop comparative analyses.
We are joining up our financial and VfM work through an integrated planning process leading to a proportionate, risk- based programme of assurance work in each client. We will also improve our investigative capability to examine service quality, financial probity and service failure risks in the delivery of devolved services.
Ultimately, we will produce a wider, more flexible range of outputs that are responsive to the needs of the bodies we audit and of Parliament.
What are the clusters?Our six clusters each focus on a key strategic issue:
z Mass market services brings together HMRC, DWP and International which all have common issues with transforming business services, automation and digitisation of services and improving their understanding of their customer base.
z Influencing and regulating brings together BIS, DEFRA, FCO, DFID and our Regulation teams. The challenges for their departments are around globalisation, growth and managing markets.
z Delivery through networks brings together DCMS, BBC, DFE, MOJ and Home Office teams. These departments face issues of accountability, governance, provider failure, quality assurance, contract management, complex procurement and the use of data and information.
z Managing major programmes and projects covers MOD, DFT and DECC. The key issues for these clients involve managing risk, uncertainty and complexity, and dealing with entrenched vested interests, including large commercial suppliers.
z Local service delivery and user experience brings together Health and Communities and Local Government. These bodies are working to understand how regulation and oversight, and the relationship between providers, commissioners and users impacts on the services delivered.
z Effective centre of government brings together HMT, Cabinet Office, Parliament and our Private and Third Sector teams. Their challenges are how to integrate core functions, how control can be exercised and how strategic planning can be made effective.
What are the benefits of this new approach?z Integrated planning will enable us to harness our insight into
client operations in one place, avoiding duplication of effort.
z Our financial audit will continue to be professional and timely but will be more risk based and proportionate.
z A proportion of our work will focus on the strategic issues, where we will use our expertise to draw consistent judgements across the clients affected and be better able to explain good practice.
z We will work more quickly and will flex the range of outputs with a view to ensuring we adopt a fit for purpose reporting style.
z We will aim to respond quicker to specific requests from the PAC – but will always make an independent judgement as to whether to undertake a piece of work.
All of the changes will be fully in place by April next year, and we will give you another update on how our new approach is working in the summer 2014 issue of InTouch.
Transforming the NAOBig changes are afoot at the NAO. A transformation programme was initiated at the beginning of this year which will change the way we work.
What do you like about working at the NAO?Stephen: The main thing is the variety of work experience. In my time at the NAO I have audited medieval Japanese beheading swords in Leeds, observed Wolverhampton by helicopter (conclusion: existence verified), had tea with Gwyneth Dunwoody and explained the Parliamentary Estimates process to Georgians in Tbilisi (they didn’t believe it). Currently I am valuing synchrotrons.
Rebecca: That we actually make a real difference to how government does things and how it spends/saves money.
Sarah: I like the culture at the NAO, and emphasis on both personal and professional development.
Robert: I enjoy meeting the clients, spending time with them in their location. You learn a lot about people through such meetings.
Santosh: As an Executive Assistant, I get to work with so many great personalities, and learn about the dynamics my teams face by interacting with external and internal stakeholders on the teams’ behalf.
Have you had any interesting/unusual jobs in the past?Emily: I worked as a copywriter before moving to the NAO. Among other things I wrote all of TomTom’s spam emails – apologies if these ever find their way into your inbox!
Rebecca: I worked in an ice cream factory before going to university as a mature student. I tested the ice cream to make sure that it had the right amount of fat etc. in it and not too many bacteria. I never went off it! It’s extra scrummy straight off the production line before getting frozen (like Mr Whippy but in all different flavours!).
Robert: I have worked at a farm shop, occasionally being required to venture out into the cold to pull out fresh curly kale, collect freshly laid eggs from Black Rock hens or pull out old bean supports. I have also worked as a rowing coach at my old school for a bit of fun.
Santosh: I worked at my local newspaper company as telesales assistant, selling advertising space for double glazing! I took the role because I enjoyed chatting to people and selling advertising space was challenging. I remember doing well, and receiving a generous bonus.
What was your most embarrassing moment at work?Robert: Forgetting the name of a client I had just been introduced to. I didn’t say anything for nearly two weeks, then they apologised to me for forgetting my name. We had gone the entire time without using each other’s name!
Santosh: As a temp at the NAO, my exchange in the lift with Sir John Bourne was the most embarrassing, as I had no idea of his status. I remember saying to my Director that I had a general chat with a really tall guy in the lift and then soon after, when I was offered a permanent role, I realised who I’d been talking to!
What is your proudest achievement so far in your career/life?Stephen: Without doubt the time my daughter won a 1st prize in her Year 1 class Numeracy Day for the best mathematics-themed costume (which I designed).
Sarah: Being awarded ‘Best Cadet’ at RAF Wittering when I was 13, not only had I been given the chance to fly a tutor jet and shoot an L98 rifle but as one of the youngest cadets (and most inexperienced) in the group this was quite an achievement.
Robert: Getting a Distinction grade for my Masters thesis as it was on an area I was weakest on (theory). This made all the hard work, hours cramped over a tiny desk in the library and reading-induced headaches worth it. It also secured the Distinction grade I wanted for my Masters overall.
Santosh: Winning my first ever award at a workplace for cooperative spirit.
Q&AThe new Alumni Team which manages the NAO Alumni Group recently received a fantastic boost in the form of seven new members: Caroline Casey, Sarah Harriss, Emily Hopkinson, Stephen Kingston, Juliana Smith, Robert Trevett and Rebecca Webb. They join existing team members: Santosh Gora, Tania Young and Sarah Threapleton.
L-R: Robert Trevett, Juliana Smith, Sarah Harriss, Sarah Threapleton, Emily Hopkinson, Stephen Kingston, and Rebecca Webb.
