London Development Agency needs more finance skills, warns new FD

More "financially literate" staff are needed at the London agency in charge of ensuring a legacy from the London Olympics, its new FD has warned.

Ian Grattidge, the new interim group director of finance at the London Development Agency, warned that improving financial management across the organisation required better understating of the importance of financial rigour.

He spoke in a meeting this morning with the London Development Agency's audit, risk and performance committee, which considered a highly critical report on the agency's financial governance and accounting by the Audit Commission.

"Getting people across the organisation...This is critical otherwise the central [finance] team will chase its tail. I want to see financially literate people across the business."

Grattidge is also looking to beef up the LDA's technical accounting abilities, following problems filing its accounts.

The Audit Commission was critical of the LDA's poor quality of its draft accounts, and qualified its value for money statements – after running £160m over budget procuring land for the London Olympics.

Further reading:

Olympic land-buying agency criticised for poor quality accounts