The PEFA Secretariat participated at the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Annual Conference 2016 on ‘Powering Growth – Transforming Public Services’, held in Manchester from July 13—14, 2016. PEFA joined discussions on practical aspects of delivering ‘excellent public finance’ and presented the role of the upgraded PEFA 2016 framework in improving public services and contributing to sustainable development.
Helena Ramos, Senior Public Finance Specialist from the PEFA Secretariat, joined Olivia Kirtley, President of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and Ian Carruthers, Chair of CIPFA Standards at CIPFA. The experts outlined the key role public financial management (PFM) plays in the delivery of public services, providing leaders with information for better decision making and ensuring taxpayers gets better value for money.
The session presented CIPFA’s new diagnostic tool ‘Delivering Excellent Public Finance’ that integrates CIPFA’s previous diagnostics and other internationally recognized tools for assessing PFM performance, including PEFA. The PEFA Secretariat, therefore, offered an insight into key characteristics of PEFA 2016. PEFA 2016 provides a thorough, consistent, and evidence-based analysis of strengths and weaknesses of PFM performance and can be reapplied in successive assessments to track changes over time; PEFA uses 31 performance indicators grouped into seven pillars of performance focusing on essential features of an effective PFM system.
This year’s CIPFA annual conference focused on how public services need to become more commercial and productive to ensure long-term growth and regeneration. For more information on the event, please refer to the conference website: http://cipfaannualconference.org.uk/
