Director of Finance role

The Director of Finance or equivalent senior named officer acting as 'senior responsible officer' for NFI, has key responsibilities to ensure the statutory requirements for bodies participating in NFI are met, as follows:

• nominate a key contact
• ensure the key contact has access to the matches (via the secure NFI software) when they become available (January 2011); and
• ensure that the key contact fulfils all data protection requirements.

Key Contact

The key contact will be responsible for:

• nominating appropriate data download contacts. This should be the person with the most knowledge of the system in question;
• nominating appropriate dataset contacts;
• ensuring that the data formats guidance and data specifications are adhered to;
• fulfilling data protection requirements- the Key Contact should be in direct communication with their organisation's data protection officer or person with equivalent responsibility;
• coordinating and monitoring the overall exercise; and
• providing feedback on the outcomes of the exercise.

Further information on the key contact role is provided in the 'key contact' online interactive training module within the secure web application.

In small organisations, it is understandable that one person may fulfil the key contact, data download contact and dataset contact roles.

Data download contact role

The data download contact is responsible for submission of the data:

• in accordance with the specifications;
• in the correct format;
• by the specified submission method (Data File Upload);
• by the required time.

Data set contact role

A data set contact is responsible for investigating the matches allocated to them by the key contact. The data set contact may also be responsible for responding to enquiries from other matches bodies should the key contact delegate this role to them.

How contact information is used

Key contact information is used to populate the ‘authority code’ look up facility within the NFI software. This look-up facility provides contact details for each matched body so there can be liaison over matches, where applicable. Consequently, the nomination of dataset contacts is encouraged where someone other than the key contact is responsible for investigating specific matches and dealing with queries from other participating bodies.

Please note that the contact details provided using the process outlined above are not used to create users on the NFI software application. Access to the secure NFI software application is a separate task administered locally by the Director of Finance and key contact.