The Audit Commission has worked with the National School of Government to produce a web-based learning scheme on the core skills in financial management for local government.

It is flexible, friendly and free to use.

Financial management and financial reporting are an essential part of good corporate governance.

They form part of an organisation's firm foundations and are management disciplines that all managers, whatever their profession or activity, must apply and take responsibility for.

They underpin service quality & improvement and they reinforce accountability to stakeholders for effective stewardship and use of resources.

Top managers (both executives and non-executives) need to be financially literate and able to understand fully the fiscal environment their organisation operates in. This free programme gives managers who are not finance experts a grounding in the core financial management skills. Its online e-learning modules cover foundation level knowledge in the following key areas of financial management:

1. Financial planning and control
2. Accounting for income and expenditure
3. Financial reporting
4. Strategic and business planning
5. Budget management
6. Performance indicators
7. Market economics
8. Investment appraisal and evaluation
9. Interpretation of financial accounts
10. Corporate finance

It takes around eight hours of flexible learning time to complete all ten modules in the user-friendly e-learning scheme. You will need to register to use the tool, but this means you can dip in and out when it suits you and you can go back for a refresher whenever you want.