Finance Team Leader

The Business Support team provide a support service to the district’s operations. As a key member of the team, you will play an essential role in leading the day-to-day finance function on behalf of the Finance and Business Manager and in supporting the achievement of our strategic business objectives. You will be responsible for ensuring financial transactions are processed by the team, efficiently, accurately and within agreed timelines, achieving full compliance with established policies, procedures and service level agreements.

You will liaise effectively with internal and external stakeholders, collating and dissemination information as required. You will work alongside the Office Manager, the Finance and Business Support Manager, the Business Support team and other colleagues as needed.

Key responsibilities & accountabilities

Management Duties

• Lead the business support and finance function to achieve the monthly, quarterly and year end timetables
• Undertaking regular 1-2-1’s with each staff member, setting and reviewing objectives based on district strategy, and ensuring timely dissemination of communications
• Identifying training gaps and ensuring the ongoing development of all team members
• Appropriate delegation of tasks amongst the team members and ensure the team prioritise workload
• Ensure cross functional training to remove silo working practices delivering flexibility and district cover
• Engaging in training and CPD to effect compliance with policy updates and accounting standards
• Ensure Health and Safety compliance within the team, including attendance at mandatory training.
• Encouraging process improvement opportunities, collaborative and team working to streamline tasks, boost team efficiency and promote best practice.
• Maintaining a positive outlook and promoting wellbeing within the team
• Deputising for the Finance and Business Support Manager and the Office Manager

Finance Duties

• Ensure transactions are processed in accordance with Forestry England financial procedures and policies, to include: the delegation of authority and accurate coding and VAT treatment
• Oversee the district cash account reconciliations
• Ongoing development and adherence to district month end timetable to ensure accurate capture of accruals, provisions, capitalisation and income drawdowns
• Assist in the preparation of the district’s annual business plan
• Assist in the preparation of the monthly business management report and revised forecasts.
• Assist in the preparation of finance workbooks (2 per annum) for submission to the national office.
• Assist in budget monitoring; tracking financial performance, analysing income and expenditure and investigating variances against budget/forecast
• Liaising with district colleagues, customers, suppliers, and national office colleagues, ensuring a high level of customer service at all times
• Acting as the finance liaison for district audit and other national team requests
• Provide other financial support for the wider team, as and when required

Other Duties

• Occasional travel to other sites, potentially with overnight stays to attend meetings/training.
• Perform other reasonable duties as required.

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 with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• 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

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

How to apply…

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form.

• You will be assessed on experience and strength based questions during your interview.

The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –

• Managing a quality service
• Developing self & others
• Delivering at pace

“If candidates pass the interview but are not the leading candidate they can be placed on a reserve list. We may offer candidates on the reserve list for this role the opportunity to be considered for other roles at the same or lower pay bands.”

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk.

If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first.

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.

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