Summary

The GFF is a cross-government community of over 9,000 people in finance-related roles across government. Its small central team is based in HM Treasury and led jointly by the Director General of Public Spending in HM Treasury and a chief operating officer from a major government department. Its responsibilities include publishing finance functional standards, providing training to staff through the Government Finance Academy and supporting the cross-government Finance Leadership Group. More generally, it supports finance capability across the civil service, by sharing good practice and providing advice and support. In July 2025, the GFF published its strategy to 2030. It builds on many years of work and recent progress, particularly on supporting finance skills and career development. In its new strategy, the GFF set out a mission to “put finance at the heart of decision-making, delivering value for money, strengthening public trust”. The GFF is putting in place the elements necessary to measure progress against its strategic aims. Successfully delivering its strategy will ultimately depend on the extent to which it can overcome enduring structural and cultural barriers such as the poor quality of cost data in government, and the lack of incentives for non-finance staff to prioritise good financial management. At the same time, the rapid development of AI presents significant opportunities as well as risks. The GFF needs to be at the forefront of these changes so that it can lead the government to seize the potential benefits. To achieve this within the constraints of its capacity, it will need to adopt an agile and flexible approach.