Senior Finance Business Partner

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall Glenfield Leicester LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Salary: £53,724- £59,220 per annum (pro-rata for part-time)

Working Hours: 18.5 per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 21st April 2025

Interview Date(s): TBC

Senior Finance Business Partner (Children Services) - Part Time Position (up to 18.5 hours per week)

Leicestershire County Council is looking to appoint a motivated Senior Finance Business Partner to provide strategic financial advice and support to the Children and Family Services department. The Children's Finance Business Partner Team supports the Children's Services Directorate, whose role is to safeguard and support vulnerable Children and Young People, including working with their families, and to provide Education Services and support to Schools. As such, you will have the opportunity to contribute in making a positive impact on the lives of Children, Young People and Families, whilst ensuring the financial sustainability of the department and its services.

About the role

Reporting to the Strategic Finance Manager, this role will provide primarily targeted strategic financial support across Children services. There is also an expectation that the post holder will take on a more formal deputising role for the Strategic Finance Manager across the range of services covered within the team. The successful candidate will need to quickly develop a full understanding of the department's needs to ensure that financial issues are identified and support the Strategic Finance Manager in ensuring that departmental budget holders have the appropriate advice, knowledge, and skills to discharge their financial responsibilities. The postholder will also be expected to take ownership of several larger and more complex projects/issues/modelling requirements, especially those which will require liaison and coordination across and between Departments - dealing directly with senior managers/project sponsors.

To be successful in this role you will have proven experience of finance in a complex organisation and share a commitment to continuous improvement. While not essential, the ideal candidate will have a background in Children's Services Finance and the challenges this brings. However, we are committed to the professional development of our staff in the finance team, and will actively support as appropriate, any successful candidates with any knowledge gaps in regards to children's services.

About You

To apply for this post, you must have the below:

• CCAB or equivalent qualification and membership of the relevant body.
• Demonstrable instances in which you have been able to add direct value to supporting departmental service areas through cost-saving initiatives, general business/reporting improvements, and informing strategic business decisions.
• Substantial experience developing links between financial and operational information to ensure business objectives and financial objectives are met.
• Good working knowledge of, or an ability to learn, relevant complex legislative frameworks/financial guidance, and an understanding of its financial implications within a children's service context.
• Experience and ability to communicate and develop effective and successful working relationships with partners, customers, and other senior stakeholders, as well as non-finance specialists in an easily understandable way.
• Demonstrated flexible approach, persistence, and resourcefulness to get things done while operating in a large, complex, and political organisation.

Leicestershire County Council - Employee Benefits

Leicestershire County Council is one of the best performing councils in the country. In 2019, we were named the most productive council in the country for the third year running. It's our people that drive the council's success. Their day-to-day effort, creativity, determination, and commitment to the people of Leicestershire help us achieve our aims.

Benefits of working for us

As an employee of Leicestershire County Council, you will benefit from:

• Being in a position to make a difference to the people and communities of Leicestershire.
• A competitive salary.
• The opportunity to join the Local Government Pension Scheme.
• Access to a car sharing scheme.
• Access to a cycle to work scheme and lease car scheme (subject to qualifying conditions).
• Access to a professional counselling service.
• Free car parking (at the County Hall site and some of our local offices).
• Training and career development opportunities.
• An occupational sick pay scheme.
• Access to a range of local and national discounts on shopping, eating out, bus travel, health clubs, and much more.
• Relocation expenses (subject to qualifying conditions).

Positive work-life balance

To support our employees to achieve a positive balance between their work and home commitments, we offer the following:

• Generous annual leave entitlements (between 25 and 35 days per year depending on your grade and length of service).
• Smarter working arrangements including working compressed hours, term-time only, job share, part-time, and home working.
• A range of family-friendly policies including maternity, adoption, paternity, and parental leave. We're also a fostering friendly employer - foster carers that also work for the county council receive paid fostering leave when it's needed.
• The opportunity to join our workers' groups (Disabled Workers' Group, BAME Staff Network, LGBT+ Staff Network, Working Carers' Group).
• A career break scheme (subject to qualifying conditions).
• Special leave provisions for employees with caring responsibilities.

Learning and development

• An induction for new starters and the ability to join a new starters' network.
• An annual performance and development review to discuss your career aspirations and what support you will need to help you progress.
• Regular one-to-one meetings with your manager.
• E-learning on a variety of topics (e.g., equality and diversity, information security, environmental awareness).
• The opportunity to undertake qualification and non-qualification courses which are relevant to your role.
• Job shadowing, either within your own or another team.
• Being a mentor to another council employee or signing up to become a mentee.

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity, and inclusion.

In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Interested in Flexible Working?

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Nerinder Samaria, Strategic Finance Manager (Children's Services)

Tel : 0116 305 7616

Email : Nerinder.samaria@leics.gov.uk

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity, and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.