Senior Head of Finance in Belfast

The Northern Ireland Office is seeking a grade 6 Senior Head of Finance. This is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious Finance professional to develop their career and gain a breadth of experience in a wide-ranging role. You will report directly to the Deputy Director for Finance and Operations, one of two Deputy Directors responsible for the Corporate Operations Group, and lead the finance function for the department.

You will be responsible for the leadership, ownership and accountability of the full range of finance activity including contributing to the work of the Departmental Board and Audit & Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC), ensuring robust financial management and control processes. You will be a trusted advisor to key decision makers and provide regular updates to the senior team including the Permanent Secretary. You will be a critical friend to the business and ensure that the senior management is supported in taking high-level, strategic decisions. You will be solutions focused and work with your team to seek out innovative ways of delivery to maximise value to both the public and the taxpayer.

Leading a small but expert team of 7 staff, you will establish strong communication across the team and support and inspire staff to fulfil their potential as well as to deliver a highly effective service. You will demonstrate excellent leadership and proactively work to ensure your team is engaged to deliver at their best whilst being a role model for inclusive leadership in the department. This role will liaise closely with key internal and external stakeholders, including Ministerial teams, budget holders and teams across the business and Arms Length Bodies, internal and external auditors, and HM Treasury.

Duties And Responsibilities:

• Lead the finance team across the full range of finance activity, including delivery of systems of financial control; technical accounting; financial control and assurance; planning and preparation of the Departments annual statutory accounts; budget planning financial management; financial business partnering; review of business cases.
• Oversee procurement and commercial management within NIO.
• Leadership and direction of the finance team, developing the priorities and operating model for the team.
• Demonstrate leadership across the wider corporate services team, working collaboratively to achieve common objectives and taking an active role in building the culture of the wider team.
• Support Senior Leaders in achieving departmental objectives through our approach to financial planning and management.

Essential Criteria:

• Fully qualified accountant CCAB, CIMA or equivalent.
• UK Government finance and financial management experience.
• Demonstrable experience of preparing or auditing financial statements.
• Experience of strategic financial planning to deliver organisational objectives.
• Strong track record in leading and developing high performing teams.
• Experience of building positive and effective working relationships across a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, and having a credible impact with senior colleagues.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to influence and engage to bring together individuals from across the business and externally to deliver key objectives.
• Able to comprehend complex technical information and distil it into a format that is widely understandable.

Desirable Criteria:

• Previous experience of the Spending Review process/other government fiscal events.
• Previous commercial management and procurement experience within the Public Sector.
• Existing Security Check (SC) clearance would be advantageous but not essential.

Behaviours:

We will assess you against the following Success Profiles behaviours at the grade 6 level during the application sift and interview process: Making effective decisions, Seeing the big picture, Changing and improving, Communicating and influencing.

Experience:

Please provide a work history and statement of suitability no longer than 1000 words outlining how you meet the essential and desirable criteria. Both will be used in order to assess any demonstrable experience, career history and achievements that are relevant to the role. Your statement of suitability needs to set out evidence of how your experience meets the requirements set out above. Your layout is entirely your preference; you may choose narrative, bullets, etc. One narrative example may cover the requirements needed. You don’t have to explain the whole process, just what you have done and the skills and experience you have used. Share with us what makes you suited to this role and why. What you can do, the skills you have that are transferable and the life experience or passion you have that are linked to this role. If you don’t have work-based examples then give examples from school/college, clubs, volunteering or other activities you have been involved in.

You will also be asked to complete a CV with details of your education, professional qualifications, previous skills and full employment history. Your work history will not be formally assessed so please put the main evidence of your skills into your personal statement. Your work history will be used to add context to your personal statement.

Interview:

You will be assessed against the same behaviours at the interview stage and will be asked to provide examples of how you have demonstrated the behaviours. It may help to use one or more examples of a piece of work you have completed or a situation you have been in and use the WHO or STAR model to explain: WHO- What it was? How you approached the work/situation? What the Outcomes were, what did you achieve? Or STAR- What was the Situation? What were the Tasks? What Action did you take? What were the Results of your actions?

Offer:

Once all interviews have been completed, you will be notified of the outcome by email. Offers will be made in strict merit order to the highest scoring candidate first. The successful candidate will be notified of a start date following successful security checks.

Security Clearance:

This role requires National Security Vetting given the access to sensitive information afforded by the job role. This role requires SC and to be eligible to apply for this role you should have been present in the UK continuously for the past 5 years.

Additional Information:

The NIO offers Hybrid Working arrangements where business need allows. This is an informal, non-contractual form of flexible working that blends working from your base location, different NIO sites and/or from home (please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas). All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity. Some roles will not be suitable for Hybrid Working. Similarly, Hybrid Working will not suit everyone’s circumstances. Arrangements will be discussed and agreed with the successful candidate(s) and subject to regular review.

The NIO offers a flexible working system in many offices. Standard full-time working hours are 37 hours per week. NIO welcomes part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns, where they meet the demands of the role and business needs. All applications for part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns will be considered in accordance with the NIO's Flexible Working policy.

Benefits:

• Access to learning and development.
• A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work-life balance.
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service pension.
• 25 days annual leave, increasing to 30 days after five years service.
• Public Holidays.
• Season Ticket Advance.