There has never been a more demanding time to work in a senior leadership role in local government finance.

When speaking to section 151 officers there is clearly a perfect financial storm brewing; the cost of borrowing, higher than expected pay rises for staff and central Government funding in particular settlement grants that have been far lower than originally anticipated.

These factors, along with additional financial pressures of delivering statutory services such as adult and children's social services, have left many local authorities with widening budget gaps.

Finding finance professionals for local government has long been challenging but, since austerity, the demand for highly skilled finance professionals to close accounts, make efficiencies, balance the budget, develop the medium-term financial strategy and transform services has grown.

The talent pool has diminished, exacerbated by several post-pandemic retirements and resignations. It has never been harder to find finance talent and the challenges facing them never greater so in our view it's critical we look further afield beyond local government to find new financial talent, particularly in the private sector where numbers of qualified, experienced and diverse professionals are high.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and Penna recruit to hundreds of finance-related roles per year, from s151 to management accountants, so we know all about finding and developing talent – and how attractive local government finance can be for the right person.

We will shortly be working on a programme that will encourage and enable non-local government finance professionals to gain an insight into the complexities and purposeful work of local government finance and bridge the massive talent gap – watch this space.

Mizan Rouf is a senior consultant for local government finance at Penna

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