Financial Systems Specialist – Herts for Learning
Salary
Starting from FTE £31,000 p.a. with opportunity for progression plus excellent benefits.
Date Ending
June 1, 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: Remote working with flexibility required to work across educational settings in Hertfordshire and occasional visits to Robertson House, 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.
The team are working remotely where possible to support their schools and when required, providing onsite support to their schools in line with Government guidelines. Therefore, the ability to reach different locations by car will be essential. If you drive, then a full driving licence and appropriate car insurance will be required. In addition to this, you will have the opportunity to work in the office for a maximum of 2 days per week. Also, as there is a permanent home working element to this role, you will need to ensure you are equipped for home working.
If 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:
- Which financial systems have you had experience of?
- You’ve been asked to evaluate a finance package / system to assess its suitability for use. What key factors need to be considered and how would you go about assessing and reporting its suitability.
- Having assessed the finance package / system you have found it basically suitable but identified some reporting shortfalls. It stores the supplier address but not the county and a requirement is that it can report by county. What options would you propose in this instance and how would you proceed to a resolution and / or decision on the software’s suitability. What considerations would you give to the future use of the software.
- The software 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. Please propose how this will be achieved, and ongoing, how guidance and support be delivered to these people. Also what factors do you feel are important to ensure effective training.
Please aim to keep your answers to a max 300 words per question.
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.
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 Black Lives Matter 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.
