Senior Finance Business Partner

Overview

The Senior Finance Business Partner (FBP) is one of the key players in the Finance Business Partner team.  The team is critical in driving RSSB to deliver its strategic objectives, by enabling our stakeholders to make better and right-first-time decisions through developing and delivering accurate, timely, insightful and challenging management information, and business planning and budgeting processes.

The role takes the lead in delivering reports and working directly with senior stakeholders – in particular COG Directors, Heads of Department, and other budget holders.  They are crucial in drawing together highly complex information, and distilling it into key insights and actionable decisions, for their areas.

The Senior FBP will represent and champion finance and the Finance department across the business, delivering key messages and building trust and engagement with stakeholders, in their critical business decisions.  

Day to day the role will use their experience and effective technical accounting knowledge to support the delivery of a full range of management accounting activities including budgets, forecasting and management information. An important part of the role will therefore involve continually seeking to improve Finance and wider RSSB processes, by combining up to date expert knowledge with a deep understanding of the business.

Responsibilities:

• Support the Senior Management Accountant to deliver the core management accounting processes, often managing specific processes, and delivering written and verbal reporting
  • Deliver annual and strategic budgets and quarterly forecasts – draw together medium complexity financial and non-financial information, to produce models, analysis and insights which enable Exco to make informed decisions
  • Contribute to periodic management information, which proactively identifies the key issues and messages that Exco need to be aware of, and use an understanding of the business and its objectives to propose specific and actionable decisions for them to consider
  • Support the business in its strategic aim of becoming more financially sufficient, through a growth in commercial income. Help to shape and challenge the commercial strategy, to ensure it remains appropriate in the wider financial structure of the company.  Ensure decision making is focussed on the proper information, driving margin rather than income growth.
  • Deliver solid financial information in a reliable and timely way.
• Engage directly with key stakeholders – in particular COG Directors and Heads of Department – to deliver outputs in an appropriate, engaging, and impactful way,
• Take the role of the ‘critical friend’ with stakeholders. Build and maintain relationships that enable you to advise on, and challenge, ways of working, and support the business to deliver its objectives, and value for money for its members,
• Represent Finance at key Directorate meetings – ensuring that financial issues are clearly communicated and understood,
• Support the development of commercial business cases – engaging with the BD&E team to build solid proposals, while challenging unrealistic assumptions. Ensure income (and margins) and expenditure are accurately recorded and reported – ensure income is recognised in line with accounting policies, and matched to cost of sales; ensure expenditure accruals and prepayments are appropriate; ensure recharges are posted accurately and timely.
• Continually seek to improve the core finance systems – in particular Planful and BC. Develop understanding of advances in software capability, and consider how that may be applied to RSSB; understand the strengths and weaknesses of Planful and BC and actively drive system improvements; champion the systems to the wider business.
• Constructively challenge inefficient processes, both within the management accounting team, the wider Finance department, and across the business – identify issues, actively propose solutions, advocate for, and drive the change,
• Represent the Finance department in complex business change projects – use technical knowledge and wide experience of RSSB to ensure they deliver new ways of working that are efficient and align with best practice.

Qualifications

• Fully qualified accountant
• Effective technical accounting knowledge, and a track record of delivering management accounting in a number of companies – including significant contribution to management information and budgets, and delivering to your stakeholders
• Effective communication skills – ability to simplify complicated financial issues and communicate to stakeholders, engage discussion around solutions, and influence decision making
• A commitment to RSSB’s values, in particular customer excellence,
• Experience of managing the requirements of multiple stakeholders – many of which will be more senior - modifying communication styles for different skill sets, and balancing conflicting requirements,
• The ability to identify opportunities to improve business processes, and the confidence and determination to deliver change
• Experience of working on cross functional, business change, projects - preferably IT system implementations,
• Evidence of professional development, and a commitment to actively staying up to date with developing trends in the core management accounting function

Early applications are encouraged, as we may close this vacancy before the advertised deadline if sufficient numbers of applications are received.

We value diversity and equal opportunities in employment and are committed to creating a workplace which is inclusive to everyone. As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, we encourage candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum criteria, to apply for our jobs. If you have applied under the Disability Confident Scheme, please let us know in advance by emailing vacancies@RSSB.CO.UK

If you require any reasonable adjustments with respect to our selection process including information in an alternative format, please contact us at vacancies@rssb.co.uk

We understand the importance of work-life balance and we offer our staff the flexibility to work within our core hours and the option to vary their location between both the office and home. If you are looking for further flexibility, speak to us at interview stage so that we can consider your request.

We value our staff and we offer a competitive benefits package to ensure our staff can achieve their best throughout their journey with us. This includes 30 days annual leave (plus bank holidays); a holiday buy and sell scheme; private medical and dental cover; a season ticket loan and travel subsidy; access to a cycle to work scheme; volunteer leave; a performance related bonus and pension.