Finance Director & Head of Finance Controls

Finance Director & Head of Finance Controls

Employer: HMRC
Location: Leeds, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Worthing
Salary: £76,000
Closing date: 13 Apr 2025

Sector: Advisory Tax
Role: Director
Contract Type: Permanent

The Risk, Control and Financial Accounting Directorate (RCFA) is part of the Chief Finance Officer (CFO) Group within HMRC. The activities of RCFA Directorate include accounting for all HMRC activity; responsibility for HMRC\’s strategic risk management process and Departmental assurance; and responsibility for maintaining and assuring finance processes and associated controls across HMRC. The directorate is heavily involved in projects to transform our finance processes and systems and is also responsible for the finance profession across HMRC.

RCFA Directorate is currently made up of approximately 260 staff across multiple locations and our vision is to:

• Help steer HMRC towards a better understanding of its key risks and to ensure these are well controlled.
• Deliver a world-class customer service through plain, simple and well-controlled finance systems and processes, in support of Finance and Departmental Transformation.
• Transform and operate financial accounting and reporting processes with our highly capable teams; leading our own programme of change delivery aligned to HMRC Transformation plans.
• Provide financial leadership, strategic direction and corporate support services to the CFO Group.
• Support the Finance Function to ensure we have the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time.

HMRC is undergoing a significant upgrade of its core financial systems. These changes present both challenges and opportunities, requiring a robust and adaptable finance function, able to innovate and embrace the possibilities the new systems will offer us.

This new Deputy Director role, combining the responsibilities of CFO Finance Director and HMRC Head of Financial Controls, is crucial to navigating this evolving landscape.

This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of HMRC\’s financial operations and controls, ensuring both stability and progress during this period of change. It demands a strategic leader with strong financial acumen, exceptional stakeholder management skills, and the ability to balance operational needs with robust risk management.

Management of People

The post holder will lead a team of approximately 40 FTE, including 4 direct reports at G6, located across multiple sites. While not directly line managing a large team, the post holder will need to influence a significant number of associated finance leaders embedded within HMRC’s business groups and across multi-site locations. Therefore, the role requires exceptional influencing skills and the ability to build strong working relationships across the organisation.

Adeptness at navigating matrix relationships is essential, as is the ability to motivate and guide individuals not under direct management. The post holder will foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement within the team and across the wider finance function.

Finance Director Responsibilities

• Provide financial leadership and strategic direction to the CFO Group, acting as the CFO Finance Director.
• Lead the provision of corporate support services to the CFO and Senior Leadership Team, encompassing finance partnering, business planning, risk management, data governance, and performance reporting.
• Ensure alignment of corporate support services with the CFO Group\’s strategic objectives, driving overall effectiveness and contributing to business success.
• Challenge senior leaders within the CFO Group on performance against business plans and hold senior leaders across HMRC accountable for effective financial controls.

Head of Financial Controls Responsibilities

• Oversee and enhance the effectiveness of HMRC\’s financial controls, reporting to the Chief Risk Officer and Group Financial Controller.
• Create a supportive environment for innovation and use this to test and implement new tools to assist with reviewing efficacy and strengthening financial controls.
• Balance the needs of business operations and customer service with the imperative to protect and safeguard HMRC through effective and proportionate controls and data provision, working collaboratively with the teams implementing the finance systems upgrade to influence end-to-end processes and controls.

Person Specification

The successful applicant will need to demonstrate relevant experience and effective delivery of the following essential criteria:

• Qualified accountant.
• Experience working in a large, complex organisation, ideally within the public sector, with knowledge of data protection and governance.
• Proven ability to provide expert advice and guidance on financial controls, including assessing their effectiveness and recommending improvements, while balancing business needs with robust risk management.
• Proven ability to innovate and introduce new tools into processes, with a view to driving efficiencies and safer, proportionate processes.
• Strong financial acumen and experience in supporting value for money decisions, budget management, and accurate forecasting.
• Demonstrable experience of leading and overseeing the provision of a full range of business support services, including financial planning, resource allocation, performance reporting, and data governance.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence and challenge senior leaders.
• Experience of leading and managing teams, fostering a culture of collaboration and high performance.

Whatever your role, we take your career and development seriously and want to enable you to build a successful career with the department and wider Civil Service.

It is crucial that our employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead, and you’ll benefit from regular performance and development reviews to ensure this development is ongoing.

As a Civil Service employee, you’ll be entitled to a large range of benefits.

This includes:

• 25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service. This is in addition to your public holidays.
• This will be complemented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the King’s Birthday.
• Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle.
• Flexible working patterns and access to Flexible Working Schemes allowing you to vary your working day as long as you work your total hours.
• A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join and where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension. Your contribution comes out of your salary before any tax is taken and will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire.
• Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers.
• Use of onsite facilities (where applicable).

Things You Need to Know

All Criminal Record Checks applications are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.

Please see attached Candidate Pack for full Selection Process details.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• Nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• Nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• Nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• Individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

At HMRC our values are professionalism, integrity, respect and innovation. We listen to our people and are committed to being fair. We are kind and human. We include people, regardless of difference. We work together. We have honest conversations.

Our values and commitments help us to build a workforce that we can be proud of which gives us confidence that we are giving the best service to our customers.

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