Finance Manager

Location

Westminster, Greater London | United Kingdom

Job description

House of Commons

The House of Commons is a unique and exciting place to work right at the heart of the UK's thriving democratic system.

Behind the scenes, the House of Commons Service is made up of more than 3,000 employees who support and facilitate the smooth day to day running of the House. They provide professional services to Members of Parliament, their staff, and the wider parliamentary community.

Staff Benefits

In addition to your salary, we offer an attractive range of benefits including:

• 30 days' annual leave (increasing to 35 days after first full leave year).
• Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%.
• Access to training and development.
• Flexible working.
• Interest free season ticket loan and bicycle loan.

Introduction

The Finance, Portfolio and Performance (FPP) team is critical to supporting a thriving Parliamentary democracy. We play a leading role in delivering the House of Commons' Strategy and corporate priorities through business and financial planning, analysing performance, and supporting the delivery of projects and programmes across Parliament. Equally important are the financial services, systems, accounting, reporting and Members' services that we provide to keep the House of Commons Service working effectively and efficiently on a day-to-day basis.

The Role

Fixed Term Contract for 18 months with possibility of extension or permanency

The Financial Services Team will engage with a range of stakeholders at all levels to ensure that financial processes run efficiently and that people can easily follow them. Financial Services covers a broad range of functions, types of activity include; purchasing, income, cash and treasury management, and grants management, and processes that impact individuals directly such as expenses and reimbursements. The Financial Services Team partner users of the system and, business areas, to help them with standard financial processes and general operational queries. They will support and deliver data processing and transactional activity fundamental to the accounting processes and supporting the flow of resource around the organisation.

The Accounts Payable Team within Financial Services will ensure invoices and requests for payment are appropriately processed, ensuring the House's obligations are duly met. They will work closely with the Cash Management Team to ensure that resources are available to pay owed amounts, supporting the cash flow process. This will support the maintenance of the Supplier Masterfile, ensure details are appropriately captured, stored and disposed of.

The Accounts Receivables Team within Financial Services will ensure that money owed to the House is appropriately collected. They will create sales orders, capture requests for payments and reconcile received funds, ensuring that they are properly accounted for. The Cash Management Team will ensure that the House has the correct funding to meet its obligations and will liaise with HM Treasury to ensure the House is funded. They will work with key stakeholders to understand the fiscal needs of the organisation and produce suitable cash flow forecasts. They will also collect and account for cash collected on the Estate and ensure it is properly recorded and deposited. The Accounts Receivable Team will also maintain Customer Masterfile, ensure details are appropriately captured, stored and disposed of.

The House of Commons has recently undertaken an independent review into financial management, examining key elements of financial management, including contract and programme management, to ensure the House has robust processes and controls in place to manage its finances. The jobholder will have a key role to play in supporting the implementation of recommendations following the review.

Some of the responsibilities for this role include:

The Finance Manager is responsible for managing their respective teams (Accounts Payables, Accounts Receivables & Cash) ensuring the efficient processing of House of Commons payables and receivables supporting the Head of Financial Services to deliver a high quality, effective and efficient service. This team provides key finance services for the House of Commons, including supplier management, payments and income processing and supporting compliance with IR35, VAT and Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) tax requirements. The roles have line management responsibility.

Finance Manger Accounts Payable; responsible for overseeing all activities of the Accounts Payable Team delivering timely and accurate payments to suppliers and third parties. These activities include the processing and payments of all supplier invoice, including procure to pay, supplier management.

Finance Manger Receivables & Cash Management; responsible for overseeing all activities of the Accounts Receivable and Cash Management Teams. These activities include income control, cash forecasting, debt management, banking, cash handling, raising sales orders, facilitating customer payments within an effective control environment ensuring statutory compliance.

Effective Financial Management

• Support the Head of Financial Services on the design and effective management of adequate business resilience plans and service improvements to meet changing business and customer needs.
• Ensure that income is appropriately accounted for, that necessary accounts are reconciled, that banking arrangements are satisfactorily managed and that the Government Procurement Card process is actively managed.
• Champion effective financial controls across the organisation by promoting financial best practice and applying relevant control frameworks. Supporting the development of key financial services policies.
• Drive improvements in system, process and staff capabilities, including flexing controls, to meet desired outputs and outcomes along with being the Accounts Payable lead on any relevant new system or system upgrades.
• Provide expert advice on the application of and compliance with taxation regulations including Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), VAT and IR35 intermediaries legislation, ensuring compliance with regulations and statutory requirements.

Stakeholder Engagement:

• Building and maintaining key relationships, in particular developing trust and rapport. This includes managing expectation of senior managers and stakeholders.
• Provide advice and guidance on financial services related matters to colleagues within the Finance community and wider organisation.
• Engage and manage external service providers and third parties that can help improve financial services and operations.
• Build trusted relationships with suppliers and support supply chain management.

Leadership and Management:

• Oversight of team members and other's work and developing leadership skills within and across teams.
• Motivating and developing staff, embedding principles of equality, diversity and inclusion, and ensuring that the team makes a significant, positive contribution to the achievement of vision and business goals.
• An understanding of the value-adding role of Finance within the public sector, and a genuine commitment to integrating Finance as an enabling function within the business's decision-making.

Security

Successful candidates will be required to complete pre-employment checks. This includes security vetting to Counter Terrorist Check (CTC) level or higher, as described in the job description. All successful candidates are required to pass these checks before an offer can be confirmed.

To enable meaningful checks to be carried out you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time. To undergo a CTC, you must have normally resided in the UK for a minimum of 3 years out of the last 5 years.

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Hours

We offer a range of flexible working options and actively encourage applications from candidates expressing a wish to perform the role in a flexible working arrangement such as part-time working, job-share and compressed hours.

Net conditions full-time working hours for staff of the House are 36 hours per week. This excludes daily meal breaks of one hour. The exact daily times of attendance will be agreed with line management.

Hybrid working

Our mission is to support making parliament happen - this means being ready to carry out our essential functions to support colleagues deliver excellent services on the Parliamentary Estate and remotely.

We provide the opportunity to have a hybrid working arrangement, in line with our Hybrid Working Policy. The nature of any such arrangement, varies according to the requirements of each job as there are some roles which can only be carried out from the Parliamentary Estate.

Workplace adjustments

As an inclusive employer, the House of Commons supports individuals in need of workplace adjustments. The workplace adjustment process prevents, reduces or removes problems you might face at work. Adjustments can be requested to help with obstacles relating to mental health, and physical or non-physical requirements. You can request a workplace adjustment if you have a disability and/or experience a difficulty or disadvantage in your workplace.

Skills and Experience

To be successful in this role you will demonstrate:

Criterion 1

Essential:

• Experience of working in Accounts Payable and/or Accounts Receivables and Cash Management with a strong understanding of financial processes.
• This should include procure to pay, cash forecasting and handling, income management, statutory compliance with taxation regulations (VAT, CIS & IR35) along with significant practical experience of their application.

Desirable:

• It is desirable that the applicant holds a level 4 finance qualification (AAT, CCAB or equivalent)

Criterion 2:

• Leadership, and the ability to motivate and develop a diverse finance team and promote excellence.
• Able to manage and coach staff ensuring all professional training and developments requirements are met.

Criterion 3

• Ability to foster a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration between the business, finance and other corporate services.

Criterion 4:

• Highly effective organisational skills with ability to identify and adapt to changing priorities, to work under pressure to tight deadlines and deliver agreed targets.

Next Steps and Additional Information

All applications should be sent to ​​

Please clearly specifiy the role you wish to apply for in the subject heading.​​

In order to apply for this post please submit:​​

• Your CV (max. 4 pages) in Word format not PDF; ​
• A personal statement in Word format not PDF, limited to no more than two sides of A4, first stating your motivations to apply and then describing how you meet the role specific requirements given your skills and experience.
• A completed Diversity Monitoring Form (Please complete via this link). If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the particular characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say'. The information you provide when submitting your application will help us monitor our progress towards the House of Commons becoming a more inclusive employer.

If invited to interview you will be assessed on your experience, technical skills as well as the the criteria based on the job description.​​

Further details will be provided if you are successful at the initial application stage.

We may ask you to complete a test, presentation or other assessment as a part of your recruitment process.

If you are invited to interview, we will ask you a combination of competency questions and role specific questions solely based on the criteria below. Any presentation or test requirements will be clearly communicated to you well in advance of your interview.

As a Disability Confident Leader, it is important that we are able to make appropriate arrangements or adjustments where necessary in order to create a full and equal participation in the selection process. If you require any reasonable adjustments, please contact the recruitment team to see how we can meet your needs.

Contact

Stephanie Robinson, Business Manager

Jack Cox, Senior Consultant

07921 336 629

Allen Lane Recruitment

33 King Street, St James's

London, SW1Y 6RJ

Job tags

Salary

£41.34k - £47.98k per annum