Assistant Finance Manager

The award-winning Commercial and Contracts Capability Team is a division within the Government Commercial Function. It was formed in 2014/15 and was established to ensure all government departments bolstered their commercial and contract management capability to deliver the best value for the taxpayer.

The role is based in the finance arm of the Commercial and Contracts Capability Team. This role predominately supports the people’s services pillar.  This section is responsible for providing a commercial specialist recruitment service and administering the pay and benefits of employees in the Government Commercial Organisation.

The role however is flexible and there will be a need to cross cover equivalent duties within other areas of the finance team when business need permits e.g. due to annual leave.  This may include for example supporting the faculty pillar who are responsible for delivering commercial and contract management training packages to enable specialists to build capability and maximise the value they are getting for contracts in the public sector.

The commercial and contracts capability finance team is currently based in York and London. The role can be based full time on site or can be worked in a hybrid manner working some of the week from home.

It is envisaged that the role will need to travel on a quarterly basis to meet up with other team members in the York, Manchester and London offices.

The Assistant Finance Manager’s role will lead on the recharges to Government Departments and the wider public sector. This includes leading on quarterly billing cycles for services provided band developing strong relationships with customers to influence them to pay their bills on time and reduce accrued income and aged debt. 

They will work closely with the finance manager and Cost Recovery and Efficiency Lead to business partner with the pillars that they support and lead on transactional work such as raising invoices/purchase orders, undertaking financial analysis and preparing journals for month end accounts.

They will be responsible for forecasting, budget setting and budget manager meetings with senior stakeholders for the areas that work and they will deputise for the finance manager or Cost Recovery and Efficiency Lead where appropriate in project meetings.  The organisation has an array of on-going improvement projects there are lots of opportunities to work on new areas of work such as implementing new systems, improving billing processes, changing payment mechanisms or improving data flows.

The work is fast-paced and plays an important role within the organisation and the job holder will be key to ensuring the sound financial management of the organisation.

Key Accountabilities:

• Undertake cost recovery – for the pillars that they are responsible for. They will ensure government and wider public sector bodies are billed promptly and accurately. Cost recovery is a critical and major part of the role.
• Query Management – The post holder will follow up on any Cost recovery queries from government departments and strive to recover cash as quickly as possible with Cabinet Office guidelines. They will strive to reduce the value of non-recoverables and drive value for money for the organisation.
• Relationship Building – The post holder will need to establish points of contacts, creating end-to-end processes with key controls and ensuring that information can be validated, to recharge departments accurately and within agreed time frames.
• Month end process – working to tight deadlines to review, analyse, accrue and make accounting adjustments as required to ensure each cost centre in the People Services Directorate reports accurate income and expenditure.
• Internal Reporting – prepare reports and provide commentary on the board pack for areas of responsibility.
• Financial transactions and working with budget holders – undertake accounts payable and accounts receivable transactions, answer finance queries from internal colleagues and explore methods of process improvement to make financial processes slicker and more efficient.
• Budget management and forecasting – lead on budgeting, business planning and forecasting for the organisational pillars that they support. Build positive working relationships with budget holders to advise them of their financial performance so that they can implement corrective action when necessary.
• Compliance – ensure compliance with internal policies & procedures, financial reporting standards, including principles around managing public money and FReM. Answer audit queries as required.
• Governance and financial accountability – conduct data analysis or prepare narrative as required for Customer Board, Oversight Committee or any other governance group as required.
• Deputise for the finance manager and/or cost recovery lead – where necessary.
• Undertake any other work and projects, in support of the Capability programme and the Government Commercial Function which is commensurate with the role.

Essential Criteria:

• The ability to work as a senior financial administrator with excellent numeracy skills.
• Experience working in a busy transactional environment with elements of finance in the role.
• Demonstrable analytical and data processing skills including a strong grasp of intermediate Microsoft Excel (e.g. lookups, pivot tables, sumif formulas etc.)
• Excellent record keeping abilities and ability to pay close attention to detail even when completing transactional tasks.
• Confident to challenge data quality when information feeds look incorrect.
• Strong organisational skills, ability to manage conflict/ urgent tasks and manage expectations. The ability to remain professional whilst working and delivering at pace and a willingness to meet challenging deadlines.
• High levels of interpersonal skills, ability to build and maintain strong working relationships with stakeholders, demonstrating an ability to engage effectively and influence others.
• Adaptable and resilient, willing to review role and priorities to meet the current and future needs of the organisation.
• A team player, willingness to work collaboratively, reliable and consistent to produce quality outcomes.
• Experience of using own initiative to complete tasks to a high standards.
• Positive attitude and welcomes the opportunity to problem solve.

Desirable Criteria:

• A part qualified accountant or AAT qualified
• AP and AR/ Cost recovery experience (including administering the recharge data and customer queries)
• Experience of using a financial ledger system.
• Experience of succinctly communicating complex financial information to a wide variety of audiences.

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving
• Delivering at Pace

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Excel test to test computer skills and basic accountancy skills

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and average employer contributions of 27%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.

Job contact :

• Name : Lunda Mweemba
• Email : lunda.mweemba@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : cabinetofficerecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk