Business Solutions for Budget Managers in Health and Personal Social Services

Managers responsible for spending public money in health and social welfare are facing unprecedented pressures to deliver better services against a background of fierce competition for resources, profound organizational change and the creation of internal market places. In this practically-directed book, William Bryans explains how business principles can be applied in the public service context to enable managers to meet this challenge. The author demonstrates how it is possible to create a surplus for service development by effective strategic management of external and internal financial environments, operational management of workloads and resources, and tactical intervention to limit budget fluctuations to tolerable levels. Each chapter includes a purpose statement, an outline of relevant theory and practice, a keypoint summary and a case study based on real world situations.

During the last 20 years, William Bryans has held a number of senior financial and business management posts in the Northern Ireland Health and Social Services Board. His wide ranging interests include the development of business competences in organisations, systems applications, and in management. Throughout his career he has promoted the notion of structured improvement in performance and has been involved with the University of Ulster in development initiatives aimed at competent management practice.

How to get the best from this book -- Content -- Structure -- Part 1 -- 1 Defining the problem(s) -- Objectives -- Familiar territory -- Significant variations -- The benefit of the integrated approach -- Market shares -- Customer and case loads -- Case mixtures and alteration in balance -- Organisational compatibility in competence development -- Solutions -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 2 The business environment -- Objectives -- The management agenda -- Business planning -- Discretion in business -- Communication -- Resource budget management -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 3 Budget managers - competent contractors -- Objectives -- Competitiveness -- Taking stock -- Amending current practice -- Specification compliance -- Competent budget contractors -- Budget management implementation -- Project management in service rationalisation -- Tractable complications -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 4 The internal environment - budget managers as purchasers -- Objectives -- The structure of expenditure -- Direction and scope of expenditure -- Capital spending -- Fixed and variable costs -- The planning equation -- The budget plan and resources -- Establishing resource priorities -- Looking at the choices -- Feasibility studies -- Key points summary -- Case study -- Part 1 summary -- Part 2 -- Synopsis - operational management and tactical intervention -- 5 Budget contracts -- Objectives -- Scope for improvement -- Budget cycles -- Business review -- Income plan -- Valuing income -- Price moderation -- Key points summary -- Case studies -- 6 Planning, profiling and setting budgets -- Objectives -- Contract implementation plan -- Time as a measure of progress -- Inflation -- Key points summary -- Case study -- Checklist -- 7 Monitoring a budget -- Objectives -- Introduction to commitment management -- Developing the approach -- Tracking -- Commitment management application -- Payroll components -- Other spending components -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 8 Tactical intervention -- Objectives -- General principles -- General constraints -- Case study -- Quality decisions -- Mobility -- Significant interventions -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 9 Control -- Objectives -- The nature of budgetary control -- Controlling the supply chain -- Control context -- Controlling the overspending -- Key points summary -- Part -- Synopsis - Developing and measuring competence -- 10 Performance measurement -- Objectives -- Performance and competition -- Expectation -- Goodwill -- Participation -- Audit -- Key points summary -- 11 Performance and the budget manager -- Objectives -- Introduction -- Size and scope of budget spend -- Comparative costs -- Resource mixes -- Morale -- Key points summary -- 12 Improving budget and business competences -- Objectives -- The work-place as a management college -- In-house characteristics -- Acceptability criteria -- The context -- Establishing the condition -- Contract and business management -- Maintaining the machine -- Reading list -- Articles by the author.

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