Senior Finance Business Partner

Hays are exclusively recruiting a Senior Finance Business Partner role for Nottinghamshire County Council.

Your new company
An incredible opportunity has arisen with Nottinghamshire County Council, the upper-tier local authority for the county of Nottinghamshire, responsible for all public services across the area. Sitting within the Financial Services Group of the Chief Executive's Department, and as part of the Financial Management Team, you will lead the team providing high quality financial information and advice to the Children and Families Leadership Team and lead the two teams providing financial advice to the department and to Nottinghamshire Schools. You will sit within the team that will contribute to budget management within their service area and the overall budget for Finance which is in excess of £4.8m as well as supporting revenue budgets and the capital programme for service departments/schools; overall financial responsibility will be between £100m - £500m.

Your new role
Reporting to the Group Manager, you will act as the main point of contact between finance and the Department and prepare regular reports to Departmental management teams, whilst attending monthly finance meetings and ensuring the Departmental issues are fed into the monthly reports to the Corporate Leadership team as well as the Finance & Major Contracts Management Committee. You will also manage the relationship with NCC schools, ensuring annual funding calculations are undertaken and managed effectively, providing financial management support and advice to schools.

• Leading the financial management team (18 staff) that provide key financial support to Departments, you will be responsible for providing regular support to budget holders as part of the monthly budget forecasting process whilst managing the annual budget setting and closure of accounts tasks that are essential to the sound financial management of Departmental budgets.
• Lead the development of financial plans across all divisions within an NCC department ensuring they reflect the Council's priorities and strategic objectives.
• Monitor the performance of the departments budgets and propose remedial action as required in order to support effective delivery of services within financial constraints.
• Ensure the provision of timely and accurate information and advice to budget holders to allow effective management of their budgets and assist them in carrying out their financial duties, constructively challenging where appropriate.
• Promote a culture which empowers budget holders and supports the delivery of value for money services, including reporting on benchmark information and key cost drivers.
• Analyse, interpret and communicate financial and performance data, and provide financial advice in the form of board reports.
• Influence decision making where appropriate to achieve departmental standards, targets and strategies.
• Lead in implementing and maintaining effective financial arrangements and promote the review of financial policy, systems and practice to deliver a programme of continual improvement.
• Lead the delivery of accurate financial forecasts and plans ensuring all identified risks are quantified and appropriately recorded. Ensure robust plans for the mitigation of risks identified.
• Interpret the financial impact relating to changes in or new legislative and service initiatives and assess their impact on the department and NCC.
• Ensure the timely preparation of robust business cases from a financial perspective, testing the underlying assumptions and quality assuring the cost, benefits, risks and funding solutions.
• Ensure compliance with financial regulations and professional accounting standards.

What you'll need to succeed
To be considered for this role, you must be a qualified accountant (ACCA/ACA/CIMA) and have experience in providing financial information to support decision making and budgetary control. You will have previous experience working within Education or Local Government and so understand the technicalities associated in these sectors as well as knowledge & understanding of strategic financial management and financial frameworks in a public sector setting. You will have experience of financial planning and management in a large, complex, customer focused organisation and be confident in your ability to identify any issues that could impact on service delivery, whilst developing options to mitigate such issues. Previous team management experience is also essential as you will be leading and motivating a diverse team. This vacancy requires you to have excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to understand and communicate financial information, guidance, and processes, to multi-disciplinary teams.

What you'll get in return
As a Local Government employee, you will be entitled to some great benefits including:

• 27 days annual leave, rising to 32 days after 5 years local government service plus 8 days statutory bank holidays
• Occupational pension scheme
• Flexible working including flexibility to work from home long-term
• Save on travel to work with the public transport season ticket scheme
• Buy a bike to get to work, tax free with the CycleScheme
• Refund on flu jabs for staff
• Childcare voucher scheme
• Employee offers and discounts
• Generous annual leave provisions, in addition to 8 days statutory bank holiday entitlement.
• Special leave provisions for employees with caring responsibilities
• Special leave for the observance of religious festivals
• Job share policy
• Career break scheme
• Employee counselling service
• Westfield Health Scheme - a comprehensive employee health plan.
• Annual Leave Purchase Scheme
• Lease Cars

What you need to do now
If you're interested in this role, click 'apply now' to forward an up-to-date copy of your CV, or call us now.
If this job isn't quite right for you but you are looking for a new position, please contact us for a confidential discussion on your career.

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