Local authority funding · Capital · Treasury · Agentic AI

Charles
Dennis

Senior local-government finance leader.
MTFSCapital governanceTreasuryAgentic AI

CCAB-qualified (CGMA, ACMA), CISA-certified and holding an MSc in Accounting & Finance. Over ten years across councils, a £bn+ regulated rail network and a growing commercial practice — translating financial position into strategic advice for Section 151 Officers, leadership teams, Cabinet and scrutiny. Differentiated by hands-on finance transformation: Power BI, SQL, Python and practical agentic AI applied to forecasting, stress-testing and monitoring.

CGMAACMACISAMSc Acct & FinLevel 3 payment authorisation
Position ProfileREF: /finance/002
Current roleProject Finance Manager
Peterborough City Council
CommandComprehensive settlement ·
rates retention · formulas
FrameworksCIPFA Prudential ·
Treasury Management Code
AuthorityLevel 3 payment
authorisation
StandingCCAB · CISA · MSc
LocationNorthampton, UK
£250m+
capital programme
£bn+
regulated portfolio
10+
years progressive
AI
stress-test built
scroll
01

Capability

the full local-authority finance stack

A working command of the local authority funding model end to end — from the comprehensive settlement through to the balanced budget and s114 risk. Six registers, one standard of evidence.

Core 01

Medium-term financial planning & budget setting

MTFS/MTFP cycles, assumption modelling, revenue budget setting, centrally controlled and contingency budgets, fees and charges, reserves commitments and drawdowns, in-year monitoring, year-end forecasts, savings delivery, balanced-budget and s114 risk management. MTFSs114contingency

Core 02

Local authority funding & income forecasting

Funding settlements, business rates — retention, targets, Growth and Investment Zones — funding formulas, council tax setting and yield, grants, Dedicated Schools Grant and demand-led pressures. Rates retentionDSGSettlements

Core 03

Capital governance & strategic capital planning

Capital strategy and pipeline prioritisation, Prudential Code statutory indicators, Capital Financing Requirement, Authorised Limit and Operational Boundary monitoring, scrutiny and audit-ready governance. Prudential CodeCFRAL/OB

Core 04

Business cases & investment appraisal

Green Book appraisal, option analysis, cost-benefit and whole-life costing, value-for-money challenge, funding-gate and financial-close readiness — taking multi-million-pound schemes through approval. Green BookNPVVfM challenge

Core 05

Capital financing & treasury oversight

Daily treasury cash-flow and liquidity management, money market and deposit investment proposals under the CIPFA Treasury Management Code, MRP modelling, borrowing strategy, capital receipts, financing-cost sensitivity and Level 3 payment authorisation. LMFAMRPLevel 3

Core 06

Stakeholder management & executive influence

Trusted adviser to S151 Officers, CLT, Cabinet and scrutiny; regulator and external audit engagement; clear communication of contentious financial positions — challenging constructively and protecting value for money. S151 adviserScrutinyAudit

02

Track record

ten years' progressive, councils → £bn+ regulated → commercial
Peterborough City Council
Project Finance Manager
Jun 2026 — Present
current

Leads financial planning, investment appraisal and governance across the council's capital and operational portfolio, reporting to the Service Director for Financial Management and advising the Corporate Leadership Team, Cabinet and scrutiny.

MTFS · funding & income forecasting · treasury · Prudential Code · Green Book · Level 3 authorisation

  • Owns the integrated planning cycle: modelling pay/non-pay inflation, demand growth, council tax, rates and grant assumptions into risk-adjusted forecasts reconciled monthly.
  • Built an AI-supported MTFS stress-testing capability quantifying inflation, demand and funding-formula shocks against reserves adequacy and balanced-budget risk.
  • Leads funding/income forecasts: rates retention and growth positions, council tax yield, DSG and high-needs deficits, grants and developer contributions, with settlement sensitivities.
  • Owns day-to-day treasury cash flow — daily and forward resource forecasting that minimises short-term borrowing need and keeps financing costs under active control.
  • Leads treasury investment proposals — money market funds, term deposits and vehicles against the CIPFA Treasury Management Code risk/liquidity/return framework, securing committee approval for yield on scarce balances.
  • Exercises Level 3 payment authorisation — the highest delegated tier: final pre-disbursement control under Standing Financial Instructions against invalid or fraudulent payments.
  • Governs the capital programme against the Prudential Code: pipeline prioritisation, CFR, AL/OB headroom, MRP, borrowing and capital receipts, aligned with the MTFS.
  • Leads Green Book business-case development and challenge — NPV, payback and whole-life cost — through investment approval, gateways and funding gates to financial close.
West Northamptonshire Council
Finance Business Partner
May 2023 — Jun 2026

Senior corporate finance role across the full MTFS cycle for a large unitary authority: budget setting and revenue monitoring, funding and income forecasting, and strategic planning — owning centrally controlled budgets, reserves strategy and fees and charges alongside a £250m+ capital programme.

MTFS · contingency · reserves gatekeeping · IFRS 9 · unqualified audit opinion

  • Led annual budget setting across service budgets and the capital programme — expenditure profiling, funding structure and MTFS alignment, as the recognised planning SME.
  • Owned centrally controlled budgets including risk contingency: drawdown criteria, allocations, virements and in-year rebalancing across directorates.
  • Convened the fees and charges workstream end to end — policy, legislative and cost-recovery inputs setting the income budget each year, plus in-year fee amendments.
  • Gatekeeper for reserves: commitment forecasting, drawdowns, transfers and technical journals with full audit trail over one of the most scrutinised balance-sheet positions.
  • Authored technical working papers behind the financial statements — aged debt, provisions, reserves, IFRS 9 credit-risk modelling; strengthened Unit 4/Agresso controls and SFI compliance to an unqualified audit.
  • Appraised major capital business cases — option analysis, cost-benefit, whole-life costing, NPV and affordability — securing approval for multi-million-pound proposals.
  • Built Power BI dashboards giving Board and scrutiny real-time visibility of spend, funding exposure, financing costs and affordability risk: a single version of the truth.
Network Rail
Finance Business Partner · Euston & Birmingham New Street
Dec 2018 — Apr 2023

Financial leadership and investment governance for a £bn+ transport infrastructure portfolio under Office of Rail and Road regulation, across two of the UK's busiest stations.

ORR price controls · investment panels · ARUP assurance · PCR2015

  • Facilitated investment panels scrutinising multi-million-pound capital proposals: delegated authority, option appraisal and value-for-money challenge.
  • Led financial performance ratification for Group Finance, presenting price, volume and mix analysis to external assurance (ARUP, on behalf of the ORR).
  • Built financial models assessing compliance risk, funding options and price controls; Power BI cost and supplier dashboards adopted by Group Finance and panels.
Notary Northampton
Head of Finance & Strategy (Part-Time)
Apr 2022 — Jun 2026

Financial and commercial leadership for a growing professional-services firm, reporting to the partners.

controls from inception · Xero automation · Corporation Tax & VAT · profitability analytics

  • Built the finance function from inception: controls, statutory compliance, Xero with automated reconciliation, and Power BI service-line profitability dashboards.
  • Owned the annual business planning cycle, cash-flow strategy, liquidity and funding decisions.
Earlier career
Regulated utility · NHS · systems
2007 — 2018

A nine-year career at National Grid (Ofgem-regulated): critical national infrastructure, budget management and compliance. Earlier: NHS secondment to the NEL Commissioning Support Unit; Head of Systems at BB Consultanta Ltd.

03

Products & AI in practice

Agentic AI is not a buzzword here — it is an engineered practice. I am actively building products that support local-government finance objectives, and I run the same discipline over my own stack: Power BI, SQL, Python and local-inference AI applied to forecasting, stress-testing and monitoring.

Live product In development

Fees & Charges Manager

A cost-recovery tool for councils: bring policy, legislative and cost inputs together to set and defend the fees and charges income budget — the workstream I convened annually at West Northamptonshire.

fees.applied8.org
Live product In development

Reserves Manager

Reserves strategy made auditable: commitment forecasting, drawdowns and transfers with a full audit trail over one of an authority's most scrutinised balance-sheet positions.

reserves.applied8.org
Built in role · Peterborough CC

MTFS Stress-Test Agent

An AI-supported capability quantifying inflation, demand and funding-formula shocks against reserves adequacy and balanced-budget risk — feeding the MTFS conversation with evidence, not adjectives.

agentic · decision support
Practice

Automation & analytics

Power BI, SQL and Python pipelines that automate financial analysis and lift reporting accuracy: single versions of the truth used at Board, scrutiny and — at Network Rail — by the regulator's assurance provider.

local inference · privacy-first
Governance-grade engineering: append-only audit trails, RBAC, and evidence chains built in — a CISA's instinct, not an afterthought.
04

Credentials & qualifications

professionally recognised, continuously deepened
CCAB
CGMA · ACMA (CIMA)
Chartered Global Management Accountant and Associate Chartered Management Accountant, CCAB-recognised — the chartered standing behind every s114-adjacent judgement on this page.
ISACA
CISA
Certified Information Systems Auditor: information assurance, IT governance, audit and control frameworks — why the systems I build are audit-ready by design.
Postgrad
MSc Accounting & Finance
Postgraduate grounding of strategic and financial management in rigorous academic analysis.
Continuing professional development — active study & applied practice

CIPFA Prudential Code and Treasury Management Code · the Fairer Funding Review and business rates reforms · funding formulas and settlements · MTFS modelling · Green Book appraisal · Standing Financial Instructions · reserves policy and s114 risk management.

Let's build the financial case
for what's next.

If you lead a capital programme, an MTFS or a finance transformation, I bring the command of the funding model, the governance discipline and the applied-AI capability to move it.

Northampton, UK Public & regulated sectors Open to leadership conversations