Business Solutions for Budget Managers in Health and Personal Social Services

William S. Bryans

How to get the best from this book -- Content -- Structure -- Part 1 -- 1 Defining the problem(s) -- Objectives -- Familiar territory -- Significant variations -- The benefit of the integrated approach -- Market shares -- Customer and case loads -- Case mixtures and alteration in balance -- Organisational compatibility in competence development -- Solutions -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 2 The business environment -- Objectives -- The management agenda -- Business planning -- Discretion in business -- Communication -- Resource budget management -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 3 Budget managers — competent contractors -- Objectives -- Competitiveness -- Taking stock -- Amending current practice -- Specification compliance -- Competent budget contractors -- Budget management implementation -- Project management in service rationalisation -- Tractable complications -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 4 The internal environment — budget managers as purchasers -- Objectives -- The structure of expenditure -- Direction and scope of expenditure -- Capital spending -- Fixed and variable costs -- The planning equation -- The budget plan and resources -- Establishing resource priorities -- Looking at the choices -- Feasibility studies -- Key points summary -- Case study -- Part 1 summary -- Part 2 -- Synopsis — operational management and tactical intervention -- 5 Budget contracts -- Objectives -- Scope for improvement -- Budget cycles -- Business review -- Income plan -- Valuing income -- Price moderation -- Key points summary -- Case studies -- 6 Planning, profiling and setting budgets -- Objectives -- Contract implementation plan -- Time as a measure of progress -- Inflation -- Key points summary -- Case study -- Checklist -- 7 Monitoring a budget -- Objectives -- Introduction to commitment management -- Developing the approach -- Tracking -- Commitment management application -- Payroll components -- Other spending components -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 8 Tactical intervention -- Objectives -- General principles -- General constraints -- Case study -- Quality decisions -- Mobility -- Significant interventions -- Key points summary -- Case study -- 9 Control -- Objectives -- The nature of budgetary control -- Controlling the supply chain -- Control context -- Controlling the overspending -- Key points summary -- Part -- Synopsis — Developing and measuring competence -- 10 Performance measurement -- Objectives -- Performance and competition -- Expectation -- Goodwill -- Participation -- Audit -- Key points summary -- 11 Performance and the budget manager -- Objectives -- Introduction -- Size and scope of budget spend -- Comparative costs -- Resource mixes -- Morale -- Key points summary -- 12 Improving budget and business competences -- Objectives -- The work-place as a management college -- In-house characteristics -- Acceptability criteria -- The context -- Establishing the condition -- Contract and business management -- Maintaining the machine -- Reading list -- Articles by the author.