In May 2024, CIPFA and IMPOWER hosted a roundtable with public sector Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and industry experts to explore:
• The challenges in making the case for good savings (eg prevention and demand management)
• Approaches to phasing out traditional cost-cutting that can do more harm than good for complex services
• The Chief Financial Officer’s role in balancing risk and reward in delivering good savings

This briefing explores the key points from the roundtable discussion and provides supplementary case studies to illustrate delivery of good savings in collaboration with local public services. Each case study covers a transformation programme supported by IMPOWER in the 2023/24 financial year.

The discussion highlighted the main challenges in delivering good savings, notably short-term decision making, siloed approaches and funding constraints. Participants also discussed strategies that showed promise for unlocking better outcomes such as:
• Testing alternative solutions before scaling
• Collaborating with other organisations to deliver place based outcomes
• Chief Financial Officers fostering the conditions for the delivery of good savings