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Form of work
SalaryAbout the role
The Finance Service in Cambridgeshire is focused on stewardship of funds on behalf of local taxpayers and promoting value for money across the County Council. We are a diverse team of finance professionals which is highly regarded across the organisation.
We have a need to boost our capacity in providing financial support, challenge and intervention in our maintained schools. Like all areas of the country, the 123 maintained primary, special and nursery schools in Cambridgeshire are facing financial challenges and need an increasing level of support to ensure financial responsibilities are upheld.
This new role, working with a very experienced strategic finance lead for children & education, will manage our central school's finance team which undertakes accounts consolidation for our maintained schools and provides regular challenge to schools on financial performance. We are expanding capacity with this role to provide more strategic oversight of this work, and additional capability to take the lead on managing our response to schools that are in financial difficulty. As well as this, this role will lead on the schools block of the Dedicated Schools Grant.
We work on a hybrid basis at Cambridgeshire, with teams coming into the office together around 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 22 July 2024.
The role currently attracts a non-contractual market factor supplement of £4,680 per annum through to at least September 2024.
For more information or to chat about this opportunity please contact Martin Wade at finance@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
What will you be doing?
You will be responsible for leading on central financial support to the Council's maintained schools, including:
- Ensuring accurate consolidation of school accounts and compliance with the consistent financial reporting framework
- Leading on managing the schools block of the Dedicated Schools Grant
- Ensuring regular challenge of school financial returns and early warning of school financial health
- Managing school cashflow
- Maintaining and updating local financial regulations, including the local Scheme for Financing Maintained Schools and ensuring compliance with changing national regulations
- Managing our local school financial reporting system
- Leading on interventions for schools in financial difficulty - including options development and appraisal for deficit recovery, working with schools to implement changes, monitoring delivery of deficit recovery plans, and working with colleagues in the Education Directorate to escalate interventions for the most problematic schools
- Work alongside our traded financial advisory service for schools to target hands on intervention in schools where necessary
About you
We are looking to appoint a committed and self-motivated finance professional to bring energy and expertise to this new role. It's a great opportunity for someone who is keen to work with schools and to contribute towards financial sustainability for the maintained school sector in Cambridgeshire.
You will be a fully-or part-qualified accountant, a problem solver, and able to pro-actively manage a varying workload that requires input from a range of peers and customers. Experience of working with schools would be very useful, but any finance professional working at, or aspiring to work at, this level is welcome to apply.
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
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
Attached documents
- SFBP JDPS June 2024.pdf
