Finance Business Partner

Closing Date: 24 April 2024
Ref 6685

We're looking for a Finance Business Partner to join Save the Children UK in an exciting role partnering with the Start Network within our Global Programmes division!

This position is for an 18-month Fixed Term Contract.

About Us

Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm.  When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave.  We ensure children's unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.

Our Finance Team helps us to grow our income and increase the impact of our spending and our Finance Business Partners key responsibilities include leading our financial planning and management, driving value for money, providing excellent management information and analysis, and providing robust partnering and challenge to managers at all levels.

About the role

Reporting to the Head of Finance, you'll be partnering with the Start Network as part of our Global Programmes division, working and influencing the relevant teams to support their strategic decision making and managing income/expenditure budgets across divisional areas of significant variability.

Start Network is an independent charity made up of more than 80 aid agency members across five continents, including international, national and local organisations who aim to deliver more effective emergency aid, harnessing the power and knowledge of the network to make faster and better decisions to help people affected by crises. 

The Start Platform maintains a strong relationship with Save the Children as the grant custodian of many of the Start Network's programmes, so whilst you'll be embedded within the finance team at Save the Children UK in this role, you'll be playing a key role dedicated to the Start Network.

As Finance Business Partner, you will support and drive the business areas you partner with, including Start Funds and Risk Financing, in maximising impact for children through delivery of effective and efficient financial performance and awards management.

In this role, you will: 

• Provide strategic and financial decision support to your assigned team within Global Programmes to underpin strong financial performance
• Provide effective monthly reporting to support regular reviews of business performance
• Work alongside the business to develop forecasts, budgets, and longer-term financial plans
• Develop business models underpinning financial planning and provide the financial inputs for business cases
• Assist teams in developing their strategy and building business cases for investment spend within their areas, providing financial and commercial insight and challenging to ensure best value for money and efficiencies.

About you

You'll be an experienced qualified certified accountant with relevant post qualification experience, ideally in the not-for-profit sector. 

You'll have excellent stakeholder management skills, with the proven ability to work collaboratively and influence the decision making of a diverse set of stakeholders.

To be successful, you'll demonstrate:

• Experience providing strategic and Finance Business Partnering support to senior managers
• Experience in the preparation of management accounts and involvement in financial planning and budgeting processes
• Experience managing awards, including budget and financial report preparation
• Strong Microsoft Office skills (and an advanced Excel user)
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; ability to identify financial issues as they arise, assess their likely impact, and devise appropriate responses
• Commitment to Save the Children's vision, mission and values.

What we offer you:

Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.

• We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.
• We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day. 

Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis and reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applicatio

Ways of Working: 

The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but there are likely to be times when you will be required to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter).  This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team and is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building. 

Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense. 

Flexible Working - We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion: 

Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think. 

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.