Key details
Mode of delivery: Online Course
Course code: PS15O
Duration: 5 days
Fee: £3,716.00 + VAT
CPD Hours: 60
Course Overview
This five-day course integrates public-sector strategy with the financial disciplines required to turn policy ambitions into sustainable results. Participants examine strategic direction, the policy cycle, political and stakeholder dynamics, evidence-based decision-making, risk, implementation and delivery. The programme also develops practical understanding of medium-term financial planning, public value, fiscal transparency, financial risk, fiscal sustainability, cost-benefit and value-for-money analysis, funding models, financial controls and public-private partnerships. By connecting strategic choices with budgets, accountability and long-term financial consequences, the course enables public-sector professionals to make more credible, deliverable and financially responsible decisions.
Agenda
Day 1 – Setting the Right Direction: Strategic Vision, Planning and Financial Foundations
- Setting meaningful objectives
- Understanding and using the ‘policy cycle’
- Evaluating complex contextual factors
- Linking strategy to budgets and medium-term financial planning
- Understanding public value and financial stewardship
Day 2 – Politics and the Public Sector
- Aligning political objectives and conflicting priorities
- Civil servants working with Ministers
- Engaging with stakeholders
- Political economy of public finance
- Fiscal transparency and accountability
Day 3 – The Importance of a Strategic Approach
- Analysis of evidence
- Monitoring and evaluating policy implementation
- Risk management and risk culture
- Financial risk, fiscal sustainability and long-term liabilities
- Cost-benefit analysis and value-for-money frameworks
Day 4 – Thinking about Implementation from the Start
- Policy tools for effecting change
- Communication as a policy tool
- Working with delivery partners
- Funding models, procurement strategy and financial controls
- Public-private partnerships and alternative financing
Day 5 – Course Review
- Summary and recap of key learning objectives
- Action Planning
Post-Course
- Three (3) x hour-long Executive Coaching sessions at monthly intervals following Course Completion
Target Audience
This course is suitable for:
- Senior and middle managers in government ministries, departments and public agencies.
- Public-sector strategy, policy and planning professionals.
- Finance, budgeting and public financial management professionals.
- Programme, transformation and service-delivery managers.
- Governance, risk, audit and performance-management professionals.
- Officials responsible for procurement, investment, partnerships or major public programmes.
- Professionals working with Ministers, elected representatives and public-sector stakeholders.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will be able to implement a successful strategy that enables you to:
- Formulate clear, meaningful strategic objectives that align policy intent with measurable public outcomes and organisational priorities.
- Apply the policy cycle to structure policy development, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and review.
- Analyse political, economic, social, institutional and operational factors that can influence strategic choices and delivery.
- Translate strategic priorities into budget and medium-term financial planning assumptions, testing affordability, trade-offs and resource alignment.
- Apply public-value and financial-stewardship principles to assess whether strategic choices use public resources responsibly and create sustainable value.
- Assess competing political and organisational priorities and identify practical ways to reconcile them with strategic and financial constraints.
- Evaluate how officials can provide evidence-based advice, maintain professional integrity and support effective Ministerial decision-making.
- Design stakeholder-engagement approaches that build legitimacy, surface competing interests and strengthen policy implementation.
- Analyse how incentives, institutions, negotiation and power relationships influence fiscal choices, resource allocation and reform.
- Apply principles of fiscal transparency and accountability to strengthen reporting credibility, scrutiny, institutional trust and responsible financial management.
- Evaluate qualitative and quantitative evidence critically and use it to support strategic policy and resource-allocation decisions.
- Develop monitoring and evaluation approaches that connect implementation progress, outcomes, costs and strategic objectives.
- Integrate risk identification, ownership, escalation and organisational risk culture into strategic planning and decision-making.
- Assess financial risk and fiscal sustainability, including the implications of debt, pensions, guarantees and other long-term or contingent liabilities.
- Apply cost-benefit and value-for-money frameworks to compare strategic options and support transparent, defensible public investment decisions.
- Select appropriate policy instruments by considering intended outcomes, behavioural responses, implementation constraints and resource implications.
- Use communication strategically to influence behaviour, build understanding, manage expectations and support successful policy implementation.
- Develop governance and relationship approaches for working effectively with delivery partners across organisational and sector boundaries.
- Evaluate funding models, procurement choices and financial controls needed to support accountable, efficient and deliverable implementation.
- Assess the suitability, value, risks, governance requirements and long-term implications of PPPs and alternative financing arrangements.
