Finance Manager

Seven Social Care are looking for an Experienced Finance Manager to fill an exclusive opportunity working within Shepton Mallet in Somerset, We are offering £662.05 per day with full time hours.

Main Responsibilities & Duties

1.    Financial Strategy and Planning

–    Understands, interprets and issues guidance on the impact of frequent legislative changes on processes and supports the Service Manager in devising innovative local solutions, systems and policies.

–    Supports the Service Manager and budget holders/administrators with medium term financial planning by identifying and quantifying the data required, analysing trends and forecasts and discussing needs with service and group managers.

2.    Financial Advice

–    Investigates and responds to specific questions from senior officers and/or members of the public.

–    Prepares information required for committee reports or briefing notes, for example, drafting the outturn report and requests for use of carry forwards.

–    Finance Contact for specific groups within the Service. This will involve:

o    Reviewing budgets with Managers/Budget holders, providing support, guidance, advice and challenge as required.

o    Providing and interpreting financial and statistical analyses to Group Managers/Budget holders to determine past and current trends and support outturn forecasting. 

o    Analysing trading accounts and forecasting outturn surpluses or highlighting any likely deficits

o    Providing and interpreting benchmarking information, comparing Somerset’s performance with other authorities.

o    Providing technical advice and support to budget holders, suggesting ways of improving efficiency without impacting on performance and achieving better value for money.

o    Identifying performance measures that can be linked to costs, based on service knowledge.

o    Ensuring that SCC Financial Regulations and procedures are correctly adhered to, providing support and guidance where required.

o    Attending appropriate financial meetings to report on financial performance and identify current and future spending pressures and areas of concern.

o    Providing financial advice to ensure charges made for services are correct, and enable services to recoup the relevant costs, for example the annual review of Blue Book charges or annual review of hourly charges

–    Responsible for ensuring all budget holders follow the correct advice and guidance, eg VAT, and ensures new guidance is issued when regulations change, or internal processes are affected.  Researches specific areas of guidance to resolve queries.

3.    Preparation of the Budget (Revenue and Capital)

–    Supporting Managers/Budget holders in the preparation of their revenue budgets, addressing key areas of concern that will impact on service delivery.

–    Provides financial advice and support when establishing new areas of budget responsibility, for example, the creation of new trading units or teams. Continually reviews expenditure and income plans, staffing levels and associated running costs to ensure net expenditure is within budget available.

–    Compiles information and analysis to inform reports to Operations Directors and the Lead Commissioner, liaising with budget holders to confirm supporting material and data.

–    Manages the input of budget information into corporate systems in accordance with agreed timetables, coding conventions and reconciling to control totals.  Ensures entries to corporate publications such as the County Council Budget Book are accurate and that budget holders are aware of the monetary constraints they are working within.

–    Completes relevant parts of local and statutory returns, such as the quarterly Corporate Budget Monitoring Returns.

4.    Monitoring of Revenue and Capital budgets and maintenance of Financial records.

–    Compiles regular reports on income and expenditure against budget for specific areas of responsibility, attending relevant meetings with Strategic Managers, Operations Director and the Lead Commissioner, identifying budgets/areas of work causing concern and considering appropriate action.

–    Provides analysis of management accounting information such as benchmarking, trends etc in respect of specific service areas to assist with strategic financial management.

–    Ensures the integrity of financial systems and structures for the Service.

–    Undertakes ad hoc projects and assignments requested by senior managers within the Group that involve investigation and interpretation of financial information and reporting of findings.

5.    Preparation of Revenue and Capital Final Accounts

–    Manages the accounting procedures for closing accounts within specific areas of responsibility, providing explanations for variations and recommendations for use of balances.

–    Prepares and provides advice, guidance and training on closure of accounts.

–    Completes relevant parts of statutory and local returns and claims and liaising with external auditors to provide explanations

–    Provides information and supporting paperwork to Corporate Finance to help produce the authority’s statement of accounts

6.    Technical Research and Major Projects

–    Informs policy development by ensuring that the Service Manager is made aware of specific issues, changes and areas of development relating to budgets by keeping abreast of national developments and legislative changes and assessing the implications of policies, plans and priorities.

–    Undertakes one-off projects, often high profile, liaising with managers, stakeholders and working in partnership to achieve specific objectives.

7.    Systems Support

–    Oversees specific information systems used within the team and the Service, for example, the post holder may:

–    Represent the Group at SAP meetings as appropriate

8.    Leadership, Management and Administration

–   Leads, manages, deploys and develops members of staff within the Group, taking a key part in preparing and delivering the maintenance and development plan for the team, incorporating the use of performance management, customer surveys and benchmarking data. Regularly reviews progress against targets and performance indicators and manage performance through the implementation of annual appraisals, training and development plans and good personnel practices. The role also covers the recruitment, selection, induction, and training of new staff.

–    Maintains and develops excellent working relationships with other groups within and outside the Service to ensure that financial implications and issues are identified early and positive recommendations are made to resolve issues.

9.  Understand, uphold and promote the aims of the council’s equality, diversity and   

     inclusion policies; health, safety and wellbeing of self and others; and  

     Organisational values in everything you do. Equality and Diversity practice covers 

     both interaction with staff, service users and communities and includes challenging discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity for all.

Applicant Requirements:

• Qualifications: Minimum of NVQ Level 5
• Experience: 2+ years working in a similar role
• Compliance: UK Right to work
• Travel: Clean UK driving license with the ability to commute to and from work independently.
• Hours: 37 hours p/w.

Working with Seven Social Care:

We have been helping social care professionals find exciting new roles for almost a decade, so we know exactly where to look when it comes to sourcing the best opportunities. We operate across the UK, and, with over 300 five-star reviews, multiple awards and amazing relationships with the biggest employers in UK social care, we give you the best chance of landing your next role.

We have a reputation for recruiting at lightning speed, however, we can only respond to candidates who meet the exact requirements of the position. If you have any queries about a role or application, please visit our website where our amazing candidate support team will be more than happy to help.