Leeds Management Accountants Conference 2019

Leeds Management Accountants Conference, Tuesday 8th October

Registration and Refreshments from 9.00am ready for a 9.30am start.  The scheduled finish time is 4.35pm.

Agenda

9.00am               Registration and refreshments

9.30am               Welcome

9.40am               What’s happening in the world of HE and what does this mean for the financial sustainabilty of universities? We hear the perspective of a Vice Chancellor to share their thoughts on the current state of the HE Sector.  Mark E Smith, Vice Chancellor at the University of Southampton (moving from Lancaster University).         

10.20am             What is the role of the finance function in this time of uncertainty and change? We hear from a Finance Director on the current challenges in HE for Finance, what are best ways to approach uncertainty and what can Management Accountants do in such uncertainty.  Have your questions ready.   Alan Thomson, Director of Finance, University of Leeds.          

11.00am              Break

11.25am              Breakout 1 (Choose 1 of 5 sessions - these are repeated in the afternoon)

1. How to prepare a business case

Business cases support many of the strategic decisions made by university leaders. A good business case needs to provide a clear view of both the financial and academic risks and benefits of available options to ensure leaders can make an informed decision. This session seeks to explore the role of a financial professional in options appraisal and business case preparation, what you might need to be involved with and how you might get the answers to the questions you have, from the perspective of discussing the approach taken at UCL.  Zak Patel, Head of Finance for Academic Projects at UCL.

2.  Using your skills to add extra value to major projects

The traditional view has often been that a management accountants’ contribution to a project is to add numbers into a business case, set budgets and provide reports.

Do you and know where else you can get involved and use your finance business partnering skills to add value? Have you considered how supporting a project through its lifecycle can help you to develop your skills and have a positive impact on the success of the project?

Using real examples from strategic projects in an HE environment, this session will consider the role of finance across the lifecycle including project initiation, procurement, and benefits realisation.

This session is suitable for management accountants and business partners looking to develop into wider project support roles, to ask questions and share best practice and ideas with colleagues.   Peter Hughes, Senior Finance Manager, Strategic and Commercial Projects, University of Sussex.

3.  Higher Education sector pensions – what’s going on and where next?

2018 was a huge year for Higher Education pensions and it’s carried on into 2019. The USS valuation shone a bright light on pension costs and risks sparking a debate that reverberated across the pensions industry. Besides USS, universities are also facing massive cost increases for the Teachers’ Pension Scheme whilst uncertainty continues to dominate for LGPS; and the local schemes many universities have for professional support services staff are also under pressure. 

Rebecca from Mercer Stuart McLean from UUK will bring colleagues up to date with the latest sector pensions thinking and their experience from working with dozens of universities and speaking to hundreds of members.  Rebecca Dodd, Director and Head of Mercer’s UK Higher Education Group, Stuart McLean, Head of Pensions, UUK

4. Monthly reporting at the University of Manchester

Monthly Financial Reporting – KPIs and focus on the important – During 2017/18 the Finance Directorate of the University of Manchester performed a fundamental review of what its stakeholders receive and require from its monthly management accounts. As a result, what is provided during 2018/19 significantly changed to a KPI orientated approach.

Chris and Rachel share the changes made, the reason for the changes, the travails encountered and how the change process, including stakeholder acceptance, continues.  Chris Trask, Deputy Finance Director and Rachel Emmott, Head of Financial Reporting and Research Finance, University of Manchester. 

5. Understanding financial performance – the TRAC Way

This session will unpack what TRAC is, the information it uses and the outputs that can be generated from it. We will outline how the data has been used by Government and Funders and the benefits that can be drawn from this.  We will consider the benchmarking information that is available and assess the different analyses that can be produced from the data to support the institution.

The session will give you an opportunity to consider how the TRAC data set can further enhance the analysis of financial performance of different activities across the institution.  Andrew Bush, Director, KPMG

12.15pm        Lunch

13.05pm        Negotiation and thinking skills.  Kerry Leigh, Laughology. 

Following on from the success of post-lunch session last year.  We are welcoming back Laughology to develop our Negotiating skills.  This session explores the importance of perception and subconscious judgments and reveals how these impact on our communication and negotiating skills.  The art of negotiation is one of the most valued skills in all walks of life – just ask the people tasked with delivering Brexit. If you understand the processes that lie beneath the language and communication of negotiation, you can negotiate more effectively and fairly. Learning to be a skilled negotiator will help you make deals, solve problems, manage conflict, and preserve relationships.  The keynote is delivered with trademark Laughology fun and laughs and gives delegates strategies to negotiate effectively and ethically in the modern world.

13.55pm         Breakout 2 (Choose 1 of 5 sessions - see above for options)

14.45pm         Break

15.10pm         Networking and shared learning

15.40pm         Massively improve your success with little or no extra effort – Mark Rhodes.  

In this presentation Mark will explain how successful people do what they do and what holds most people back in life. You will go away with easy to use ideas and strategies to be more effective and more confident in not just your work and career, but your life in general too.   Over the years Mark has helped many groups and individuals including many people in the world of finance and accountancy to massively improve their results and confidence, with simple ideas and tools.
Mark will take you through areas such as confidence, adapting to change, difficult conversations, overcoming personal mindset barriers and much more.

16.35pm         Conference close