Financial Accountant in Wales

Location: Beverley, Cardiff, Southampton and current MCA employees may remain at their current locations.

Job summary: Would you like to work with the UK’s only national emergency service that has a variety of contracts and commercial arrangements with the associated complex accounting treatments for our helicopter and aviation services? Do you want to be a subject matter expert providing technical accounting advice/guidance and apply your professional judgement to future business strategies in line with International Financial Reporting Standards and the Financial Reporting Manual (FReM), in support of our business and operational colleagues? Are you experienced in external financial reporting processes including the production of Annual Reports and Accounts in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards and being the main point of liaison with our External Auditors? If so, we’d love to hear from you!

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) is seeking a Financial Accountant to join the Corporate Services. The MCA is an Executive Agency of the Department for Transport, providing multiple statutory functions as flag, port and coastal State and delivering international obligations for search and rescue, environmental protection and responding to major maritime incidents. The Finance function is a key enabler for the Agency to ensure we can deliver against this remit, managing an annual budget of c. £500m.

As part of the Directorate of Corporate Services, the Financial Accounting team is responsible for preparing external financial reporting for the Agency and ensuring robust processes are in place to give assurance on the quality of the numbers.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary.
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Job description: As the Financial Accountant you will report to the Head of Financial Accounting and will be responsible for the external financial reporting processes for the Agency including the production of the Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) and Department for Transport consolidation packs, working with finance colleagues and auditors to agree accounting treatments as necessary. You will play a key role in balance sheet accounting and contribute towards the yearly budgeting cycle but also have a key input into the medium-term financial planning and any Spending Reviews.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:

• Ensuring Finance processes are compliant with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) requirements and the Government Financial Reporting Manual (FReM).
• Producing financial statements, notes and narrative in line with IFRS and FReM requirements, and present to stakeholders.
• Producing quarterly consolidation packs for submission to DfT colleagues, ensuring returns are consistent with internal reporting.
• Working closely with diverse stakeholders, across the audit period, ensuring progression of annual reports and accounts in agreed timescale.
• Supporting continuous improvement and transformation of financial systems and data, to meet stakeholder needs.
• Supporting stakeholders with technical accounting advice and guidance and support business managers in complex situations, contributing to future business strategies.
• Ensuring Non-Current Assets are correctly recognised, componentised and reported, and interpretation of impact to financial reserves and government accounting.
• Ensuring any technical accounting adjustments are accurately assessed with supporting information to underpin management decisions.
• Ensuring the Agency’s leasing arrangements are correctly accounted for in line with IFRS16 Leases requirement.

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills they need. We aim to empower line managers to create teams where people can flourish and deliver excellent outcomes for the public.

For further information on the role, please read the role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

Person specification:

Qualified or part qualified, under one of the main five Consultative Committees of Accounting Bodies (CCAB) i.e. ACCA, CIPFA, ICAEW, ICAS CIMA or equivalent with relevant experience. You will be required to provide evidence that you hold any essential qualifications at some point during the recruitment process. If you cannot provide evidence, your application will be withdrawn.

To be successful in this role you will need to have the following experience:

• Relevant experience in a financial accounting or financial control role.
• Highly developed interpersonal and influencing skills.
• Highly proficient with Excel and able to deal with large datasets, including creating financial models, with a strong ability to analyse the outputs, using this analysis to inform decision making and advise management if required.

Additional Information:

Full time roles consist of 37 hours per week. While we welcome applications from those looking to work with us on a part time basis, there is a business requirement for the successful candidate to be able to work at least 30 hours per week. This role is suitable for hybrid working, which is a non-contractual arrangement where a combination of workplace and home-based working can be accommodated subject to business requirements. The expectation at present is a minimum of 60% of your working time a month will be spent at either your designated workplace (one of the locations cited in the advert) or, when required for business reasons, in another office/work location/visiting stakeholders. Your designated workplace will be your contractual place of work. There may be occasions where you are required to attend above the minimum expectation. Some travel to other offices will be required, which may involve overnight stays.

If you have a question about hybrid working, part time/job share hours, flexible working, travelling for work, or require a reasonable adjustment, please contact the Vacancy Holder during the recruitment process to avoid possible disappointment later in the process should your working arrangements not be compatible with the requirements of the role.

Please note that we will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa where a role has been deemed to be business critical. This role does not meet that category, and we will not sponsor a visa. Therefore, this role is not open to applications from those who require sponsorship – candidates must ensure they have the appropriate right to work in the UK before applying. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Making Effective Decisions
• Delivering at Pace

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

• External Reporting – Annual Accounts, Notes and Narratives, National Audit Office (NAO/ HM Treasury (HMT) management of relationships (Practitioner)
• Technical Accounting – Accounting Policy, Other Technical Advice, Assets and Capital Accounting (Practitioner)

Alongside your salary of £44,241, Maritime and Coastguard Agency contributes £12,816 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary.
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave).
• 8 Bank Holidays plus an additional Privilege Day to mark the King’s birthday.
• Access to the staff discount portal.
• Excellent career development opportunities and the potential to undertake professional qualifications relevant to your role paid for by the department, such as CIPD, Prince2, apprenticeships, etc.
• Joining a diverse and inclusive workforce with a range of staff communities to support all our colleagues.
• 24-hour Employee Assistance Programme providing free confidential help and advice for staff.
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

For more information and to apply, please visit our website via the apply button below.