CIPFA Business Plan 2022-25
Making it count
CEO’s welcome
This business plan is a checkpoint.
One year into the five-year roadmap we outlined last year, we’ve made a more than satisfactory start, but there are many challenges ahead. There will be bumps in the road and there are still many miles to travel.
Therefore, we’ve taken stock and adjusted some things.
We need to be better at measuring our performance. So, this business plan includes a series of milestones and metrics: what we’ll do, when we’ll do it and how we will measure success.
These milestones and metrics are all underpinned by an assessment of the key risks – in other words, those things that may happen to blow us off course. We need to keep risks under constant review and have strategies in place to manage and control them.
We also know we need to tell a better story about ourselves and make stronger and clearer statements about what we stand for. So, we refreshed CIPFA’s purpose, adopting the tagline ‘Making it count’ because CIPFA’s work and the work our members do every day matters and makes a difference.
CIPFA is a unique organisation operating in many different spaces: a membership body, a standard setter and advocate for good financial management, a trainer and educator and an advisor to public bodies everywhere.
We have introduced three brand pillars, which between them encapsulate everything we do:
- CIPFA thinks: for our standard setting, thought leadership, and practitioner-focused work
- CIPFA develops: for our education, lifelong learning and membership offering
- CIPFA solutions: for our work with customer organisations on the complex issues they face
2022 will bring some exciting developments, including the launch of our new Professional Qualification, more high impact thought leadership to further raise the profile of the CIPFA brand and a major refresh of our subscription products.
It’s right that we’ve reflected and adjusted our course. It’s important that we remain focused on our destination. Together we will get there. We all make it count.
Rob Whiteman CBE
Rob Whiteman CBE
Purpose and ambition
Our purpose – making it count
We want what we say, think and do to count. We want to contribute to debates and shape events. We want CIPFA members to count in the public finance leadership they provide. We want the solutions we provide to the public sector to count, and we want working here to count.
CIPFA is committed to changing lives for the better.
As a global leader in public financial management and governance, our aim is to make a difference to the world we live in. Our work enables people to prosper, protects the vulnerable and helps sustain the environment for future generations.
As a professional institute, we support our members and students to act with integrity and deliver excellence in public financial management throughout their careers.
By setting standards and advising public bodies and governments, we help ensure the money and resources used on behalf of citizens are raised and spent fairly, transparently, efficiently and are free from fraud and corruption.
Our thought leadership puts us at the heart of the policy debate, while our education and training offerings and range of advisory services support our members, students and other public finance professionals, helping them add value to their teams and the organisations for which they work.
CIPFA is a global body, operating at local, national and international level. Wherever we find ourselves and whoever we are supporting, our goal is to always make it count.
Our ambition
We want to do more over the next four years to fulfil our purpose and create a strong and resilient CIPFA. Our ambition is made up of five clear and measurable goals:
1. Amplify our voice, shaping and commenting on global public financial management.
2. Grow our membership.
3. Move towards becoming a truly international organisation.
4. Focus on key products and services to grow our revenue.
5. Make CIPFA a great place to work for our staff, delivering excellence to our customers.
Milestones and metrics
We’ve defined a series of milestones and metrics: what we’ll do, when we’ll do it and how we will measure success.
A milestone is something we will deliver or achieve – a tangible output that will help us demonstrate progress towards our ambition.
A metric is measurable and represents the outcome we want to achieve. Metrics will allow us to check the impact of our ambition.
Each element of our ambition is underpinned by milestones and metrics.
Voice
- Develop our voice on sustainability to help us become the authoritative voice on sustainability reporting in the public sector
- Harness insights from our forums to keep our thought leadership relevant in the UK and internationally
- Create globally relevant thought leadership and high-impact events, working with internationally respected partners
- Improve our website, online and social media presence to give us a more impactful voice
Membership
- Rename our qualification: CIPFA Professional Accountancy Qualification (PAQ)
- Refresh syllabus content with a greater emphasis on sustainability, ethics, digital and data
- Embed a new learning management system and e-assessment platform to improve and enhance digital teaching and learning for all students
- Review and revise all membership categories to support a clear pathway to CPFA
International
- Launch new qualifications in anti-corruption and audit
- Develop international accredited training providers in targeted regions, building on work in Pakistan, North Macedonia and Botswana
- Craft a regional member engagement strategy
- Plan and host an international conference
Revenue
- Enhance and improve existing products and services, including CIPFA Connect (replacing publications, TISonline and Networks), FM Model and AssetManager
- Launch the CIPFA Futures qualification
- Extend the AFEP programme to incorporate fire services
- Win key contract renewals in the NHS and United Nations
Staff and customers
- Implement pay and grading reviews for staff
- Review HR and finance systems
- Procure and deploy a new customer relationship management (CRM) system
- Introduce staff learning and development programme
- Further embed equality, diversity and inclusion into the way we work
Values and behaviours
Our values and behaviours set out how we will work to deliver our ambition.
Value 1: we are trusted as independent and ethically driven.
Behaviour: we demonstrate transparency, authenticity and integrity, and we are trusted, as we deliver on our promises and commitments.
Value 2: we provide unique, specialist expertise.
Behaviour: we act commercially and use our knowledge and expertise to add value for our customers, members and stakeholders.
Value 3: we are people focused, supportive and collaborative.
Behaviour: we respect each other, celebrate our diversity, and work together collaboratively across our different teams as oneCIPFA.
Value 4: we are committed to innovation and digital delivery.
Behaviour: we are dynamic, generate new ideas and feel empowered to constructively challenge the status quo to ensure we are innovative and don’t get left behind.
Value 5: we are responsive and customer oriented.
Behaviour: we are flexible, agile and open to change to ensure we are responsive and provide the best service to our customers.
Telling the CIPFA story
“CIPFA is a unique organisation operating in many different spaces ... we’ve introduced three brand pillars, which between them encapsulate everything we do.”
CIPFA thinks:
Drives brand awareness and reflects our thought leadership, our statutory guidance and practitioner tools and support.
CIPFA develops:
Represents our lifelong learning offer and our role in supporting and developing students, members and customers across the CPFA, other qualifications, CPD and membership.
CIPFA solutions:
How we work alongside customer organisations to help tackle the complex issues they face.
This includes advisory, fraud and anti-corruption, data, property, procurement, recruitment and transformation.
Copyright ©2021 CIPFA
CIPFA, registered with the Charity Commissioners of England and Wales no. 231060 and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator no SC037963.
CIPFA Business Limited, the trading arm of CIPFA that provides a range of services to public sector clients, registered in England and Wales no. 2376684.
Registered Office 77 Mansell Street, London E1 8AN
Built with Shorthand