When programme directors leave the swim lane.
In large transformation programmes, especially in local government finance, the line between “programme” and “BAU” is everything.
A Programme Director owns delivery: milestones, dependencies, risk, and change. Operational finance owns control: reconciliations, closedowns, payment runs, assurance, and the statutory clock. Cross those lanes and governance does not shout — it thins out.
What goes wrong in practice:
- Programme assurance starts sounding like line management
- Officers who raise control concerns are treated as blockers
- Temporary Oracle / ERP workarounds become the new normal
- Meeting lists shrink so challenge leaves the room
- Accountable finance leads still carry the risk while someone else sets the tempo
That is how a transformation loses its grip on reality. You can hit a go-live date and still hollow out day-to-day control. You can talk “agility” while the audit trail quietly breaks. And when something later goes wrong, the organisation discovers too late that nobody was clearly in charge of BAU while everyone was managing the programme.
Good programmes stay in their lane: design, test, assure, hand over.
Good finance leaders stay accountable until that handover is real — not assumed.
Respect the swim lane because public money depends on it.
#LocalGovernment #FinanceTransformation #ProgrammeManagement #Governance #OracleERP #PublicSector #saperp