Supervising Finance Officer

The Finance team provides support to all operational and non-operational teams across the SFO ensuring that that they have the right financial and management information and support to enable them to manage their resources effectively. The Finance team also maintains the SFO’s Finance system, Oracle Fusion, and ensures that all income and expenditure transactions are processed promptly and effectively, and that appropriate financial records are kept.

The Supervising Finance Officer provides guidance to the Financial control function ensuring that suppliers, staff and witnesses are paid promptly and correctly. The Supervising Finance Officer will also be responsible for VAT submissions to HMRC, as well as the compilation of monthly returns in compliance with existing Cabinet Office requirements on spending controls and transparency returns.

As a Supervising Finance Officer you will be responsible for:

• Provide direction to staff within the financial control team.
• Approving BACS and manual payment ensuring that suppliers, staff and witnesses are paid promptly and correctly.
• Maintaining the Fixed Asset register, ensuring that it is reconciled to the General Ledger on a monthly basis and ensuring all approvals are in place.
• Ensure that key account reconciliations (including bank reconciliation) are regularly prepared, up to date and maintained in a timely manner.
• Ensure that the SFO fully complies with its VAT requirements with monthly returns prepared for review by the Financial Controller.
• Preparing cash flows, monitor receipts and payments on a regular and routine basis to support proper financial control.

For more information about the role and for a full list of key responsibilities, please see attached Job Pack.

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)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

Application stage

You will first need to successfully complete the Civil Service Numerical test. Following this,

As part of the application process you will be required to provide:

• A personal statement of no more than 500 words that explains how your skills and experience meet each of the essential and desirable experience criteria as listed in the job pack.

Experience of reconciling balance sheet accounts is the lead criteria; this criteria will be assessed first and candidates who do not meet the required standard will not have the remainder of their application considered.

Please note, desirable experience will only be taken into account if there is a large volume of applications and there is a need for further shortlisting for interview.

• A supporting CV outlining your job history and qualifications, (including how you meet the essential technical criteria for the role.)

It will not be possible to provide feedback to applicants who are unsuccessful at the application stage.

Interview stage

Behaviours and experience criteria as outlined in the job pack will be tested at interview.

Full details of the interview process will be made available to shortlisted candidates in the invite to interview.

Sift to take place from 25th September.

Interviews are expected to take place in person at the SFO offices on 30th September.

All dates are indicative and subject to change.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. To be eligible you must meet the following residency requirements dependent of the level of security vetting required:

• SC: 5 years residency in the United Kingdom preceding this application.

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