News / Department launches search for CFOs

The Department of Health has launched the recruitment process for more than 200 chief finance officers for clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), the local hubs of the NHS Commissioning Board and commissioning support organisations.

NHS North West director of finance Jane Tomkinson, who is leading the initiative, said the Department wanted the pool to be finalised by the end of March to support the CCG authorisation process.

It was appointing external advisers to run the accreditation process, which will ensure the prospective CFOs ‘have the required skills, competencies, values and leadership qualities to deliver strong financial management in the new organisations’.

‘The process of getting accredited chief finance officers into the new organisations is moving at a fast pace,’ she said. ‘We aim to have a pool of finance leaders who have gone through an accreditation process.  We will have done the legwork to assure quality but the recruitment into local posts will be done by CCG leaders.’

Initially the process is likely to involve PCT cluster and locality finance directors and assigned CCG finance directors. ‘We intend to extend the accreditation process to capture other individuals who may be uncertain about their future options and aim to prevent the leakage of senior finance professionals from the NHS,’ she said.

She said the Department wished to identify individuals’ development and support needs and it hoped to spot talented individuals.

Although prospective CFOs will be encouraged to be flexible about where they work, Ms Tomkinson accepted most would prefer to stay in their local area.

Contrary to earlier suggestions, NHS deputy chief executive David Flory told the HFMA annual conference in December that CFOs would sit on CCG boards. While he believed it would be difficult to find more than 200 finance managers at the right stage of their careers and with the right skills, a number of CCGs may share their CFO.