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Finance Lead - Business Partner x2

Job Family: Policy & Advisory Professional Knowledge

Grade: 8

Directorate: Resources

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*£37,038 - £44,814 per annum (£46,857 achievable through performance related progression in line with our annual appraisal process)

Finance Lead - Business Partner- Corporate & Communities

This role is supporting the Corporate and Communities Directorate within the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames. Within this Directorate are services provided which are Kingston only based and other services which operate across the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames and London Borough of Sutton as shared services.  You will support Culture services, including the Climate emergency team and Communications team, Chief Executives and Governance and Law, including Business Support. You’ll be supporting shared services including HR, Finance, ICT, Customer service and Audit with a Kingston perspective. 

 

Within Corporate and Communities, there is a large ICT capital programme that you will help support, which includes a range of projects from small software implementation to large scale transformation projects supporting the wider Council. There are also shared service ICT projects within this area. Your day-to-day role will be supporting budget managers across the directorate with their budget forecasts through regular budget monitoring meetings, helping identify development needs in relation to training for new budget managers and supporting budget managers with queries. You’ll be expected to provide support with budget setting, year-end tasks, feed into business cases and budget reports and use our financial system. You will also assist with grant spend, reconciliations and various returns.

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Finance Lead - Business Partner- Place

This role is supporting the Place directorate within the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames. The directorate includes the Strategic Planning & Investment team, the Property team (including Facilities Management), Community Housing, and Regeneration & Economic Development. Within Place, there is also a large capital programme that you will help support. The projects range from small maintenance works across the estate, to large scale builds and refurbishments. 

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Your role will include supporting budget managers across the directorate with forecasting, year-end tasks, and using our financial system. You will also assist with rent reconciliations, monitoring project and grant spend, analysing costs for business cases, and collating information for internal and external documents and returns. 

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Brief Description of job role and department

The Shared Finance Service ambition is to add value, inspire success and this role is part of the Shared Finance Service (SFS) collectively responsible for delivering SFS activities to realise this ambition. The role provides financial support and advice to budget managers across both Councils, with the aim of enabling them to manage their budgets in a challenging financial environment.

 

The postholder will mainly support at least one of the service areas of the Councils and will partner and collaborate with colleagues across the Shared Finance Service to provide seamless finance support to our customers. Working closely with the Strategic Finance Business Partners and the Head of Financial Planning and Business Partnering, you will provide financial management support and advice to service areas across the core financial cycle of budget setting, budget monitoring and closing of the accounts. You will also act as a critical friend to the business and provide insightful financial analysis to support business improvement and change.

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Representative accountabilities

  • Deliver advice and guidance in a broad area of expertise to ensure customer needs are met.

  • Identify and implement improvements in own work area in order to deliver continuous service improvement and improved outcomes to customers.

  • Regularly communicate with internal customers to share information and build working relationships to support collaborative working.

  • Keep up to date with changes in relevant policy and legislation to ensure delivery in own work area is effective and complies with appropriate regulations/statutory guidance.

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Budgetary accountabilities

  • Deliver advice and guidance in a broad area of expertise to ensure customer needs are met.

  • Identify and implement improvements in own work area in order to deliver continuous service improvement and improved outcomes to customers.

  • Regularly communicate with internal customers to share information and build working relationships to support collaborative working.

  • Keep up to date with changes in relevant policy and legislation to ensure delivery in own work area is effective and complies with appropriate regulations/statutory guidance.

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Specific accountabilities

  • Provide high quality professional advice and support to budget managers

  • Translate financial and business activity data into insightful analysis, supporting budget managers with their in year budget monitoring, capital programme monitoring, and medium term financial planning. This includes utilising key internal business systems and external data sources

  • Understand and help embed compliance with core financial management process and contribute to the continuous improvement of these processes

  • Help identify development needs in relation to financial management and strategies to meet these needs including training for new budget managers.

  • Work in close partnership with Strategic Finance Business Partners in supporting business strategic vision into operational success

  • Have a detailed understanding of finance processes with an aim to spread this knowledge to services to enable self sufficiency.

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Role Profile - Details Specific to Job Family

These roles provide a broad service that set policy and provides advice to support and assure all of the council’s day to day activities.  They gather information required by other groups to make strategic decisions and translate this into corporate policy and strategic advice.  They have little or no direct accountability for outcomes; however, what they are accountable for is the quality of advice they provide to business leaders. 

At the lower levels, these roles tend to focus on research and analysis and the interpretation and implementation of policies.  At the higher level, role holders set strategy, develop policy and provide assurance across the Council more broadly.

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Role Profile - Details Specific to Grade

These roles will have accountability for achieving clearly specified and measurable results either personally or through the leadership of a team.  Will be dealing with complex problems and issues within the boundaries of technical or professional skill and knowledge. Will make recommendations on procedural improvements and other initiatives to enhance team performance.

 

Roles requiring a level of professional expertise to assure a standard or provide expert advice to others.

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Person specification

 Essential Knowledge and/or Experience

  • Experience of providing a high quality finance service in a large organisation

  • Experience of working in a customer-focused environment and achieving successful outcomes in the delivery of services that meet customer needs

  • Proven experience of using IT in a business environment, including, Google applications, Word, Powerpoint and software packages to record and manipulate data.

  • Proven ability to analyse and interpret financial and non-financial information and communicate in a clear and concise manner.

  • Strong communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively with finance and non-finance professionals

  • Experience supporting budget managers through the core finance processes of budget setting, monitoring and closing of the accounts.

 

Desirable Knowledge and Experience

  • Qualified or studying towards relevant professional qualification (e.g. AAT, CIPFA, CIMA, etc)

  • Experience of leading or providing financial support to change programmes and business    improvement initiatives.

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Capabilities and Behaviours

  • Ability to prioritise and manage own workload in light of competing priorities and tight deadlines

  • Excellent data analysis and numeracy skills with a methodical, proactive and problem-solving mindset to resolve issues and minimise process errors

  • Excellent communication skills, verbally and in writing, with the ability to discuss and present finance concepts and processes in a range of ways with non-finance people

  • Ability to work in a continuously flexible, streamlined and effective way.

  • Ability to manage conflict or competing objectives to deliver creative and innovative solutions that contribute towards achieving corporate priorities

  • Ability to develop strong working relationships and establish personal credibility with a wide range of stakeholders both within and outside of Kingston and Sutton Councils

  • Creative approach to problem solving and improving delivery of finance services

  • Open to change and embraces innovation

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Mandatory accountabilities/requirements for all LBS staff

  • Ensure all health and safety standards are adhered to for the relevant work area.

  • To carry out duties and responsibilities in accordance with the Council’s Core Values and Equality & Diversity Policy and all other Borough and departmental policies and procedures

£37,038 - £44,814 per annum*

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