Financial Systems Specialist
Salary
Starting from FTE £31,000 p.a. with opportunity for progression plus excellent benefits.
Date Ending
July 31, 2022
Contract: Permanent: fulltime, at 37 hours per week, 52 weeks per year (part-time hours will be considered)
Salary: Starting from FTE £31,000 p.a. with opportunity for progression plus excellent benefits.
Location: Hybrid working consisting of remote working, flexibility required to work across educational settings in Hertfordshire, and occasional visits to the Head Office in Stevenage.
Do you enjoy financial problem solving and fact finding to reach a solution?
Would you like to use your financial knowledge and skills to influence the development of financial systems in order to provide improvements and efficiencies for customers?
Have you generated and delivered training in engaging ways to aid customers understanding of complex finance and systems processes?
In this role you will be joining the Financial Services Systems Team to ensure the finance systems used in school meet the statutory and Herts County Council requirements of schools financial reporting and budgetary control. You will have a key role in influencing system and process improvements, project managing them to fruition whilst creating and delivering training to schools. You will also support our Helpline Service and Advisers in their delivery of financial services to schools and academies.
This role requires an individual with experience in finance who can resolve complex finance queries, challenge and test financial systems and have the ability to influence developments. The successful candidate will hold a qualification in finance (full or part), be able to communicate complex financial information and guidance to customers in a variety of ways to ensure understanding and, will have a proactive approach to keeping their knowledge up to date. You must be able to collaborate, maintain and develop the relationships with key stakeholders and 3rd parties to achieve results.
The Financial Services Systems Team ensure that the financial management and budgetary control software used in schools’ meets the reporting requirements, is robust, efficient and facilitates informed decision making. The team liaise with Herts County Council and 3rd party suppliers to develop those systems, provide helpline support, along with guidance and training on finance and finance systems. This service is provided to schools, academies and shared with the wider team of Financial Services Advisers and HfL School Business Managers working with schools.
This is an opportunity to develop your career by joining the Systems Team in supporting schools, influencing systems development and delivering guidance and training, in order to help schools to make informed financial decisions so that they can help their pupils to achieve their potential.
Our ‘working from anywhere’ approach provides colleagues the opportunity to work flexibly in line with their role requirements. This consists of working on-site across various schools and settings, remote working and, if desired, up to 2 days per week in our Head Office in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Therefore the ability to reach different locations by car will be essential for this role. If you drive, then a full driving licence and appropriate car insurance will be required. As there is a permanent home working element to this role, you will need to ensure you are equipped for home working.
Benefits: A generous employer pension contribution, 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays (rising to 31 days after five-years) or the equivalent paid for Term Time employees, family-friendly policies, hybrid working, company performance bonus, professional development opportunities, and benefit schemes for discounts and cashback offers.
Do you want to know more about this opportunity? Please contact Stephen Luff by email Stephen.Luff@hertsforlearning.co.uk and provide your mobile no. so a mutually convenient time can be arranged to discuss the role.
How to Apply To apply, email hfl.recruitment@hertsforlearning.co.uk with a detailed CV or the HfL application form (available to download from the HfL website) along with a cover letter to include responses to the following questions/scenarios:
- What financial systems/ packages do you have experience of?
- Scenario – You review a finance package / system and find it to be suitable but basic. However you have identified there are some reporting shortfalls, it stores the supplier address but not the county and the customer’s requirement is that the finance package / system can report by county.
- What actions would you take to reach a resolution and / or decision on the software’s suitability?
- Scenario – A finance package / system has been authorised for use and an internal team of 50 staff, 6 helpline experts and 400 external schools need to be trained to use the system.
- What factors do you feel are important to ensure effective training?
As part of our move towards eradicating unconscious bias within the recruitment process, we ask that you follow the guidance stated in the application forms.
For recruitment queries, our Central Recruitment Team can also be contacted on the hfl.recruitment email address above.
We would love to hear from you.
Interview Date: w/c 20th June 2022 via Microsoft Teams
This job advert may close as soon as sufficient applications have been received. To make sure you don’t miss out on this great opportunity, please submit your application as soon as you can. Please note that the interviews will be taking place remotely.
HfL is committed to being an equal opportunities employer. We insist on the equal treatment of all current and prospective colleagues and will never condone discrimination on the basis of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership.
HfL is also equally committed to becoming an anti-racist organisation and we encourage you to view our Anti-Racist position statement which gives clarity on our anti-racist stance. In our relentless efforts to be an anti-racist organisation, we recognise the negative impacts of under representation and lack of diversity in our organisation, our education system and in all aspects of our society. Therefore, for recruitment into any HfL post, where we have 2 or more candidates of equal merit, candidates with protected characteristics will be given advantage over candidates without such characteristics. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘tie-breaker’ and is referred to as ‘positive action’ in the Equality Act 2010.
To help us meet our high standards and aspirations of a fully diverse and inclusive workplace, we strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply and to join us.
Please note that if you are invited to interview, we will expect you to be prepared to discuss unconscious bias with us; we find these conversations more than any others give us all a good idea of what working together will be like.
