Management and leadership in the finance function at the ministry for Education and Employment

Abstract

This study is intended to identify the key issues of management and leadership in the Ministry for Education and Employment's Finance Function. It evaluates five key elements, namely Resilience, Flexibility, Self motivation, Ethical Standards and Situational Awareness; and reports on the extent to which these components are present within the Finance Department. Questionnaires distributed to seventeen officers in managerial and operational grades, forming part of this department reflected a lack of internal controls, mainly relating to deficiencies in segregation of duties, non standardization of processes and an absence of employee induction courses. This study illustrates leadership concerns, which to varying degrees impinge on MEDE's Finance Function. The study has noted that the management needs to enhance transparency and integrity, and strengthen Internal Controls to safeguard public monies; which will further promote good governance within the Department. This would entail that leadership within MEDE's Finance function secures the collective commitment of the management and operational team in order to rectify the concerns mentioned in the preceding paragraph. In turn, this would reflect positively on the corporate image of the Ministry. This research outlined the essential need to evolve strategic decision making through focus groups and to equip the operational officers with enhanced skills through training which will ultimately result in improved resilience, flexibility and greater synchronization within the Finance Department. These issues invite further research on a variety of approaches, namely management control systems and strategic priorities which impact on the key components evaluated in this study, namely resilience, flexibility, situational awareness, ethical standard and self motivation; enhancing the performance standard of the Finance Department, within MEDE.