Interim Head of Finance/Finance Director

At Bellway we recognise that people are the key to our success, and we are committed to building an inclusive culture that values and respects difference combined with creating a safe and inclusive working environment for all colleagues. This means we are positive about making adjustments as well as providing flexible working and we would be happy to talk to you about how this could work for you.

There is an exciting opportunity to join Bellway, one of the UK’s largest house builders. Our Durham Division is looking to recruit an Interim Head of Finance/Finance Director to join the Division’s Finance team on a 12 month fixed term basis.

The Interim Head of Finance/Finance Director will drive the financial performance of the Division’s business and is a key member of the Division’s senior management team, supporting the Managing Director achieve the agreed business plan and sustainable, profitable growth. The Head of Finance/Finance Director will have a broad level of operational knowledge to enable critical review and challenge of key decisions and information across all the Division’s disciplines.

Principal Accountabilities of the role include:

• Develop the business plan with other functional heads within the division, ensuring it is aligned to the Group’s strategic objectives.
• Take ownership, and ultimately the delivery, of the budget and forecast for the division, ensuring it is accurate and well managed, with particular attention to ROCE, WIP and cash management.
• Review and challenge proposed land acquisitions, including areas such as the financial assumptions and VAT.
• Primary divisional contact for divisional HR, payroll, IT and fleet issues with support available from Group and lead and manage the Divisional finance team and ensure accuracy, quality and efficiency are maximised.
• Ensuring divisional compliance with the Group Accounting Manual and manage the interim and year end process with external auditors through to sign off for the division.
• Oversee all month end processes for the division and timely delivery of management information to both the divisional management team and Group.
• Treasury management – ensuring monthly and daily cash flow forecasts for the division are as accurate as possible and divisional adherence to the Prompt Payment Code.
• Accurately and timely completion of returns to Group such as at year end, half year end, trading updates, budgets, pay review, bonus calculations, National Statistics and prompt payments.
• Management compliance and overall responsibility for all taxes relating to the Division. This includes VAT, CIS, payroll taxes, corporation tax and residential property developer tax.
• Forecast valuation revenues in conjunction with the Sales Director for inclusion in the quarterly valuations. Understand the costs and risks for each site, providing active review and challenge to both the Commercial and Construction Director, of both the costs incurred to date and costs to come.
• Carry out any other reasonable tasks as directed by the Managing/Regional Director and/or Group Finance Management Team.

Experience, Qualification and Skills

• Considerable post-qualified experience gained in industry in a role incorporating accounting, financial control and commercial finance/business partnering.
• Experience must include: financial and management accounting including leading month end close, evidence of responding to and working with external auditors, providing analysis, profit and loss and cashflow, forecasting and planning, supporting and challenging businesses to make optimal operational and performance decisions.
• Experience of successfully leading and developing a team.
• Experience of working within a similar role would be preferred.
• Working knowledge of COINS is desirable.

Qualifications and Training

• Current full UK driving licence.

Skills and Aptitude

• Excellent administration and organisation skills.
• Analysis, numerical and report writing skills.
• Strong management and time management skills.
• Strong communication, listening and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to prioritise workload and meet deadlines.
• Demonstrates a high level of discretion and confidentiality.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to work on own as well as part of a team.
• Proficient IT skills along with a good working knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and Outlook) and the ability to adapt to new systems.

Committed to diversity and inclusion.

The Role and Working Conditions

• Office based but regular travel to developments within the divisional region is required.
• Fixed term - 12 months.
• Willingness to work flexibly and outside office hours as and when required.

Please note this role is subject to a basic DBS and financial pre-employment checks.