London Development Agency needs more finance skills, warns new FD
New LDA director of finance Ian Grattidge concerned over finance skills gap across the agency, as it looks to deal with issues raised by its auditors
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