The National Trust

Re-design of an existing financial training programme within very tight timescales and tailored extensively to the organisation with the objective of improving results.

The National Trust is a charity set up to preserve historic places and properties for ever, for everyone. They are funded entirely through donations, membership, legacies and revenue raised from their commercial operations. Prior to our involvement, The National Trust had been running a financial training programme but the results and feedback they were receiving weren’t as good as they had hoped. We were invited to tender along with a number of other providers in August 2009 for the opportunity to re-design and deliver a financial course that would better meet their needs. This new course would need to be completed ready for delivery only three weeks later.

Objectives

We met with Jonathan Noall, Central Training Services Manager, and Sharron Costley, Assistant Director, Decision Support from their Finance team as part of the tendering process. We found out more about their organisation and the complexity of their financial management. The people managing their budgets were from an extremely diverse range of backgrounds and had a need to really understand the importance of good budgeting and financial management and the techniques for doing so.

Solution:

Upon being told that we had been successful in winning the tender, we immediately arranged further meetings with Sharron along with Regional Financial Managers, Analysts and potential course participants. This enabled us to get an excellent understanding of the intricacies of the internal workings of their finance team and the financial responsibilities of their budget holders. We were able to challenge their ideas and come up with suggestions on how to get the best results.

We developed a highly tailored course that covered a number of financial areas and included many of the internal processes, procedures and reports used by The National Trust budget holders and finance teams. We invited a member of their Regional Finance team to join us for the last hour of each session which showed the course participants the support that was available to them post course.

Results:

The feedback from the initial course was extremely positive and we have since run many courses for The National Trust, training hundreds of their employees up and down the UK including Northern Ireland. The course has been refreshed several times in line with internal changes to The National Trust structure and financial management procedures meaning that we are always up to date with the latest changes within the organisation. We are proud to be part of their ongoing training programme.

We are told that the people who have attended the courses are now creating and managing budgets far more effectively, asking intelligent questions to their Regional Finance teams, understanding the financial targets that they are working towards and following the right procedures. All of this adds up to much better financial management and control which is exactly what they were looking for.

Feedback from Course Participants:

The trainer made something incredibly detailed and potentially very confusing easy to understand, clear and effectively communicated. I feel I have definitely learnt a lot and I know this will benefit me and The National Trust directly. I wish I had had this training months ago!

I am a bit of a finance “phobe” and found this course so accessible. I discovered that I knew a lot more than I had thought I did. It has left me wanting to go away and play with figures!

Brilliant trainer – very good at breaking complex jargon and processes down into simple understandable language.

I feel much more confident in my knowledge after the course. Complex theories and reports, etc were explained simply – very useful.

The training was extremely informative and was easy to understand. The pace was good and there was a good balance of discussion and practical work.

Excellent course that made me think outside of my comfort zone. I will put this all to use when I become a budget holder in the near future.

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