Numbers and alliances
Finance language, income statements and coalition building.
Three and a half hours on numbers and alliances: why finance is a board responsibility, the language of finance, the income statement, negotiating in practice and everyday coalition building.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 3 hours 30 minutes
- Where
- Serving the public
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Councillors, board members and trustees without a finance background in councils, charities and public bodies
Overview
Leaders who cannot read the numbers depend on others to tell them what is true. This course, taken from Leading from the front bench, starts with finance as stewardship: four financial duties, the section 151 officer, five questions for any financial paper and the Northamptonshire County Council case. It builds the language of finance, from cash and accruals to going concern, prudence and Goodhart's law, then reads the income statement across companies, charities and councils through the Cwm Valley Trust example. It closes with negotiation, including the 2023 Hollywood writers' strike, and everyday coalition building, where Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank show expert and referent power.
Aims
This Focus is built to give leaders enough financial fluency to question accounts with confidence and see a surplus as a result rather than a verdict, together with the negotiation and coalition building skills that carry a sound decision through to agreement.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Apply five plain questions to any financial paper, and recognise the warning signs of a budget built on hope.
- Distinguish recurring from one-off income, and identify the underlying result behind a reported surplus or deficit.
- Plan a negotiation that creates value by trading issues, strengthens your BATNA in advance and stays within public sector limits.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Explain why financial oversight is a stewardship duty shared by every board member, including the four financial duties and the roles of board, audit committee, finance director and auditor.
- Distinguish cash accounting from accruals accounting and explain how the three financial statements and the accounting equation connect.
- Explain how the income statement tests whether an organisation lived within its means, including when income is recognised, and compare its form in companies, charities and councils.
- Distinguish the distributive and integrative elements of a deal, and create value by trading issues that each side values differently.
- Map stakeholders on a power and interest grid and plan how to engage each quadrant.
- Apply five plain questions to any financial paper, testing income security, true cost, risk, cash timing and assumptions with professional scepticism rather than cynicism.
- Apply the concepts of going concern, prudence, materiality and consistency, and the revenue and capital distinction, as questions to put to your finance team.
- Distinguish recurring from one-off income and identify the underlying result once one-off and restricted items are removed.
Built from 2 parts.
3 hours 30 minutes of learning.
- 01Did we live within our means?The language of finance and the income statementBitesize · Finance for Non Finance Professionals3 modules
- 02Alliances and corridorsCoalition building and office politicsBitesize · Influence, Persuasion and Negotiation2 modules