Assistant Accountant - Schools

About the role

The Finance Team in Cambridgeshire is well regarded and is a key support service that helps the smooth running of the Council and ensures value for money for local taxpayers.

This post will be involved in range of financial activities and will be integral to supporting the finance team to fund and monitor maintained schools as part of the annual financial cycle.

It makes a real difference to the financial sustainability of our schools and is a key part of ensuring good stewardship of public funds.

We work on a hybrid basis at Cambridgeshire, with teams coming into the office together one or two days per week, with the option to be home or office based for the rest of the week. Re-location support can be provided to eligible people who move to the local area for this role.

Interviews are expected to take place in week commencing 13th May 2024.

For more information or to arrange an informal discussion about this opportunity please contact Kerry Newson or Sam Walker via Finance@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.

What will you be doing?

You will be involved in range of financial activities and will be integral to supporting the finance team to fund and monitor maintained schools as part of the annual financial cycle.

You will be responsible for monitoring, reconciling and passporting grant funding to maintained schools.

You will be responsible for maintaining financial policies and guidance for maintained schools to reflect national and local changes.

You will be working alongside colleagues in the Children’s finance team, as well as liaising directly with school finance staff.

About you

We are looking to appoint a committed and self-motivated individual who is focussed on providing good quality financial advice to customers, with excellent communication skills to deal with both finance and non-finance staff within schools and the wider finance team.

Ideally you will need to be a fully or part-qualified accounting technician (AAT) and be able to demonstrate experience in a similar financial setting, together with strong technical accounting skills.

The successful candidate must be proactive and able to work under their own initiative, as well as contributing to wider team objectives.

We are committed to the professional development of our staff in the Finance Team, so don’t be worried if you don’t have a background in Schools finance.

About us

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits:

• Flexible working
• Flexible Bank Holidays
• A comprehensive wellbeing package
• Our Cambs Rewards employee discounts
• A comprehensive pension scheme
• IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network.
• Camweb our staff intranet helping to keep you informed
• An employee recognition scheme