Senior Finance Officer Role A - School Contact Officer

Job description

We are seeking an effective business partner who can provide high-quality financial support and advice to our Brighton & Hove schools through the Schools Finance Traded Service.

The successful applicant will join a diverse, friendly and professional team.

The Schools Finance team at Brighton and Hove City Council is performing well and has strong customer satisfaction results.

Schools are operating in an environment of increasingly tight resources with associated requirements for higher level advice.

Contract type: Fixed term for two years

Interview date: Tuesday 29 th September.

For an informal discussion, please contact Sue Pollock - Principal Accountant Schools at [email protected] .

About the role

This role is key in helping schools and other children's services to maximise their use of resources to deliver excellent education for the children of Brighton and Hove.

The postholder will work on the team providing finance support to our schools.

To deliver this work, we are looking for someone who:

• Has a passion for supporting schools who are working in an ever more demanding environment
• Enjoys using their expertise as a finance professional to improve the service delivered to schools
• Is skilled in analysing and interpreting financial data
• Has strong communication and organisational skills
• Is skilled in developing, writing and presenting financial reports and training in an accessible manner for non-finance experts

Why us?

• You will have the opportunity to work in a dynamic team where diversity is valued. You can join the networks such as the BME Workers' Forum, the LGBTQ Workers' Forum, the Women's Network, the Disabled Workers and Carers Network.
• You will be able to work flexibly, including some working from home.
• You will be required to attend the office every Tuesday for our team collaboration day.
• In the last staff survey 100% of team members said:
• They have regular meetings with their line manager.
• Their line manager and colleagues treat them with respect.
• They can rely on their line manager to be there for them at work.
• They feel fairly treated as an individual at work.
• Working in this role will give you opportunities to work on a range of tasks from delivering training to identifying and delivering process improvements and utilising the benefits of our new finance system. The Council offers a comprehensive training package to support your development.

Encouraging a diverse workforceOur city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Why work for us?As a council, we want to:
• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.

How to apply Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you've submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.

We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.

All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants' responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.

Additional informationYour starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.

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