Nick Carroll Email & Phone Number

London, Gb

London, England, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

Chichester, Uk

Responsibilities Led Surrey’s financial strategy, planning and budgeting, including: working with Cabinet, Corporate Board and finance teams to facilitate effective business and financial planning; extending and renewing Surrey’s medium term financial plan (revenue and capital); analysing and responding to government pronouncements and identifying funding implications; and advising and briefing senior members and officers. Led the council's risk management and corporate governance arrangements, including maintenance of risk registers, preparation of the Annual Governance Statement and ensuring financial regulations and instructions are fit for purpose. Represented Finance on Surrey’s Procurement Review Group and at Surrey Treasurers’ Association.Achievements• Jointly led multi-disciplinary Lean thinking project team to review and improve business and financial planning.• Implemented first phase of improvements to business and financial planning, making it more transparent, engaging, collaborative and robust.• Completed Surrey’s Medium Term Financial Plan and relevant Cabinet and Council reports.• Briefed senior officers and members and prepared Surrey CC’s input into reviews of local government finance, business rates pool and pilot bids and responses to financial settlements and other funding proposals• Reviewed and improved operation of Investment Panel that approves over £100m capital spending annually.• Encouraged, enabled and supported staff to improve risk and governance arrangements, resulting in an internal audit judgement of ‘Effective’ and clear ownership of the AGS by the Leader and Chief Executive.• Successfully coached professional trainees and delivered learning and development training.

London, United Kingdom

Responsibilities • Provide technical information and guidance on accounting, auditing, value for money assessments and other audit reporting across six sectors, including to audit firms. • Plan, draft, commission and edit technical guidance to maintain its currency and utility. • Ensure auditors receive clear, accurate and timely responses to their technical queries.• Proactively communicate technical news and practical directions to 1,200 auditors weekly.• Design, co-ordinate and manage programmes toPRINCE2 principles to deliver professional training.• Procure expert advice and manage contracts to deliver specialist technical guidance.• Manage a team of professionals, including developing seconded final year trainees.Achievements• Improved auditors’ technical capacity, efficiency and effectiveness by consolidating the Commission’s technical information to provide timely, practical and easy to follow advice. One effect of this was to reduce the annual number of technical queries by about 20%.• Improved the turnaround time for technical queries by 12%.• Delivered technical training, including a successful major change programme for 500 auditors and performance specialists to improve their use of professional standards.• Introduced a weekly newsletter that became essential reading for 1200 auditors and increased compliance with professional, technical and organisational standards.

Responsibilities • Lead on financial management and financial reporting knowledge and manage regional advisors.• Represent the Commission as a speaker at conferences and workshops. • Secretary to Local Government Financial Management Advisory Group, bringing together senior officers from the Commission, local and central government, and the profession.• Expert advisor to national reports, including World Class Financial Management. • Develop quality assured audit guides to support improvement and raise income. Achievements• Analysed details from about 300 auditors’ assessments to identify medium term financial strategy as a key improvement factor and developed tools and guidance to support better practices. Use of resources scores showed increased specific and overall performance by audited bodies.• Contributed to professional groups, including developing and revising the CIPFA FM model. • Facilitated interactive finance workshops, including to 100 senior delegates at CIPFA conference. • Prepared Financial management in a glacial age report and Finance skills for all e-learning and commissioned a series of in-depth financial management case studies to show how successful bodies improved to attain high standards of financial management. • Delivered audit and improvement guides that raised client performance and lowered audit risk, including on: medium term financial strategy, financial management, corporate governance and risk management.• Led on finance in three London Borough corporate assessments.

Responsibilities • Provide technical research, advice and guidance for subscribers across all of IPF’s Best Value Advisory Services, covering legal, professional, procurement and performance issues. • Lead and manage IPF’s Best Value Advisory Services for finance and corporate services by providing practical workshops, guidance, bulletins and subscriber helpline. • Support colleagues providing services to other subscriber streams. Achievements• Ensured client satisfaction to grow and maintain subscriber numbers and exceed income targets.• Developed and ran a series of ten practical, interactive workshops, each for around 70 delegates that helped ensure councils prepared a new statutory report with under a year’s notice. • Delivered effective training and consultancy support within and beyond IPF’s subscriber base.

Responsibilities • Develop local government financial policy, standards and technical advice. • Liaise with government departments, other professional bodies and ASB about CIPFA’s professional standards and guidance for local government.• As Secretary to CIPFA/LASAAC Joint Committee, liaise with ASB, LASAAC, CIPFA Council and Local Government Committee to keep the Local Government SORP up to date.• Provide practitioner support and guidance on accounting, financial management, public procurement and other legislation affecting local government. • Support practitioners by: designing, organising and promoting conferences and seminars, delivering presentations, drafting, commissioning and editing publications, preparing bulletins and press releases and responding to members' helpline queriesAchievements• Designed, promoted and delivered many successful courses and publications on councils’ accounting and financial management to support practitioners and to meet significant income targets.• Drafted CIPFA’s formal evidence to the Nolan Committee’s inquiry into local government and helped present it.

Worked as a trainee accountant in the three main professional sections of the Treasurer's Department of: Accountancy, Audit and Technical. Passed all professional exams first time.Managed the revised estimates, accounts closure and audit liaison for central service departments.Managed a small team to provide the full range of financial support to Surrey's operational services DSO. This included: budget preparation, costing and accounting advice, monthly reports on financial and performance monitoring, financial forecasts, accounts closure and audit liaison. The DSO had a £20m annual turnover providing highways engineering and environmental services that it won under compulsory competitive tendering.Managed a team to provide the full range of financial support and advice to the Councy Treasurer on Surrey's capital programme and pension fund. This included: budget preparation and co-ordination, costing and accounting advice, liaison with legal services and main capital spending departments, monthly financial monitoring, cashflow and expenditure forecasting, transaction monitoring, accounts closure and audit liaison. Surrey's capital programme was about £100 million and the pension fund value was about £500 million.I drafted sections of the Annual Report for Surrey's DSO, capital programme and pension fund. I prepared Surrey's pension fund's first summary annual report for distribution to its members.

Management Development Programme

Cipfa

Department, Electronic And Electrical Engineering

I carried out postgraduate research into biosenors. I published two academic papers: - Thin-film antimony–antimony-oxide enzyme electrode.

Bachelor Of Science - Bsc, Biochemistry, 2:1

Bsc Hons (2:1), Biochemistry

Education record