Senior Finance Officer

We have two exciting opportunities for you to join us as a permanent, full time Senior Finance Officer in our Finance Directorate at West Sussex County Council. One vacancy sits within our Financial Control team and another in the Strategic Finance team. Please read below about both of these great opportunities and if you wish to apply and have a particular preference with one of the roles, please state this in your covering letter.

The Opportunity

Salary: £37,336 to £40,221 per annum

Working Pattern: Full time, 37 hours per week

Location: Hybrid working, based at County Hall, Chichester and working from home

Interview date: w/c 14 October 2024

Financial Control Team

In this role, you will dive into a mix of exciting responsibilities, from financial accounting to essential controls and statutory returns. You will play a crucial part in preparing our annual accounts and handling remuneration and related party disclosures. Plus, you will be the go-to person for any external audit queries, so strong communication and scrutiny skills are a must! You will also take charge of key statutory returns while connecting directly with our residents as the Finance Lead for Freedom of Information requests, ensuring quick and accurate responses.

Furthermore, as our Senior Finance Officer, you will take part in the following:

• Take charge of your own account reconciliations while also keeping our corporate schedule in tip-top shape.
• Review your colleagues' work and share your insights when needed.
• Keep an eye on non-portfolio budgets and reserves to ensure everything stays on track.
• Contribute to reports for Senior Management and Members, sharing the important information they need.
• Lend a hand to the wider Finance team in coordinating budget setting and wrapping up the outturn management accounts.

Strategic Finance Team

We are looking for a finance professional to be a key part of our Strategic Finance team. You will need strong technical and analytical skills to support the team in delivering financial insight and advice in relation to complex budgets delivering services to thousands of people across the county. You will also need excellent interpersonal skills to build effective working relations with colleagues in front line services, while being able to constructively challenge them to deliver the best value for the people of West Sussex.

The role will involve working with Adult Social Care budgets. The service is experiencing a period of unprecedented change, where people are living longer resulting in significant growth in demand for social care services. Since we want to make sure West Sussex is a great place to live, the County Council recognises this challenge and has an ambitious improvement programme. At the heart of this is an aim to promote independence by enabling people to stay healthier and live in their homes and communities for longer. Linking financial data with performance information, and with a naturally enquiring mind, you will play an essential role in supporting the service to build a sustainable model for delivering adult social care services.

What are we looking for?

• Able to demonstrate the relevant skills and experience, with great communication and interpersonal skills to make the most of your talent.
• Be proactive with a can-do attitude, and a focus on personal and professional development.
• A good team player, keen and able to work collaboratively with stakeholders, partners and third-party suppliers to achieve outcomes within a complex operating environment.
• You will be able to effectively manage conflicting priorities, to deliver high quality projects.
• A strong focus on continuous improvement and a commitment to delivering and ensuring value for money.

For more information on the Key Skills as well as the Qualifications and/or experience required, please refer to the Job Descriptions attached.

Working for us

As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this we want to help support your development and provide an great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, have access to a range of benefits including:

• an excellent local government pension scheme
• generous holiday entitlement of 27 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave
• volunteering opportunities
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform (see our Staff discounts page if you are a business looking to offer a discount)
• health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

Further information

The reference number for this role is CRS00869.

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter. In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.