News / NCB considers general readiness assessment

By Steve Brown

The NHS Commissioning Board finance function is considering how it might deliver an ongoing assurance process to assess finance managers’ readiness for chief finance officer roles.

The assurance process for potential chief finance officers for clinical commissioning groups was completed in the early summer. Jane Tomkinson, finance director for NHS North of England, who has led the assurance work, confirmed to Healthcare Finance that some 240 potential CFOs had been through the process.

The assessment assigned a 1-5 grading, with grades 1 and 2 indicating the candidate was not ready for a CFO post in the next six months and grades 3-5 indicating reducing levels of required development needs. All candidates were given the green light to take up CCG director posts.

Ms Tomkinson said the 100% readiness rate did not mean the assessment was too easy.

‘I am not surprised by the outcome,’ she said. ‘By default the group were either substantive, acting or interim finance directors. However, there was a significant number of candidates designated as having a range of development needs.’

All these candidates will need to agree a development plan with their CCG accountable officer and ideally also with their NCB Local Area Team finance director.

Ms Tomkinson said that the information on development needs was being examined and it is intended that there will be a co-ordinated approach to addressing these needs, both within the cohort of assessed managers and potentially with the wider senior finance workforce.

CCGs have now started to appoint CFOs. They are not obliged to draw candidates from the assessed pool. But if they have not appointed an assessed CFO, they will be required to provide alternative evidence that the CFO has the right attributes and competencies. 

Ms Tomkinson said there had been requests from CCGs that had appointed ‘externally’ to retrospectively access the assurance process. There has also been interest from individuals interested in showing their readiness for such roles – despite being outside the original scope of candidates.

‘We are thinking about options for some form of ongoing assessment,’ she said. ‘This could in theory be something that was useful more generally for CFO appointments in other NHS organisations rather than just focused on the CCG community.’