The Children’s Commissioner for England sits at the heart of Government, delivering for children, and championing their voices and needs. This includes a particular responsibility towards children who rely on the state for their safety or protection.
The Children’s Commissioner is a unique statutory role with powers to help bring about long-term change and improvements for children. Her messages to policy and decision makers, leaders of industry, charities and sometimes parents provide insight, evidence, and challenge to us all to provide the best support possible for children as they grow up.
The Children’s Commissioner’s office (CCo)is a small but high performing and productive organisation. The combined role of Director of Finance and Resources is a critical role in the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), sitting at the heart of the Office. It blends financial assurance capability and strategic thinking with operational delivery and staff management responsibilities. Reporting directly to the Children’s Commissioner, you will contribute to ensuring that the organisation achieves its strategic aims.
You will be responsible for leading a portfolio of corporate functions. Accommodating the different organisational requirements, you will have several common responsibilities including finance, procurement, payroll, audit, facilities, human resources, and business continuity planning.
As a qualified accountant with significant experience of working at a senior level in the public sector, you will be responsible for refining and developing the corporate functions within your portfolio to ensure their successful delivery, and for providing specific financial assurance to the Children’s Commissioner’s office and Department for Education.
With demonstrable senior leadership experience, you will have excellent interpersonal and influencing skills at a senior level, with both internal and external stakeholders.
Duties
- Lead the corporate services functions to ensure the effective operation of financial, HR and commercial controls, policies and procedures and provision of data and relevant assurances to key stakeholders.
- Build a high performing and highly capable corporate services team to provide expert advice and support to the Children’s Commissioner and Senior Leadership Team (SLT colleagues) in the delivery ofCCoobjectives and services.
- Deliver end year accounts which comply with all relevant government accounting guidance (HM Treasury’s Financial Reporting Manual (FReM), Consolidated Budgeting Guidance, and Managing Public Money), and ensure adequate audit trails are maintained and provided to the auditors to give assurance over the validity of the financial statements.
- Act as main point of contact between CCo and the Sponsor Team in the DfE and other DfE contacts such as Finance and HR Business Partners. Liaise with Sponsor Team to ensure CCo funding pressures are acknowledged and incorporated into Grant in Aid (GiA) allocations.
- Support SLT, SMT, and Project Leads on monitoring budgets and cost areas.
- Take responsibility for corporate governance, including audit and risk, compliance with Government regulations and risk management, ensuring that financial issues and risks are raised and recorded at an early stage. Work with those responsible to identify and implement appropriate mitigating actions and solutions to ensure CCo remains within budget.
- Handle organisational, financial, or employment related legal disputes and maintaina relationship and framework with Government Legal Department (GLD) for advice and support.
- Responsible for the relationship with the National Audit Office (NAO), outsourced external auditors (currently Ernst and Young) and internal audit. Oversee the production of the Annual Report and Accounts (ARA), ensuring all statutory and administrative deadlines are met.
- Oversee management of the CCo payroll, including pensions, workforce reporting and forecasting to DfE and Cabinet Office and ensure the payroll system is regularly reconciled to the accounting system. After the Civil Service pay guidance is published in the spring, produce a suggested pay remit for approval by the Remuneration Committee and Secretary of State, ensuring compliance with the overarching terms can be demonstrated through the Oscar return.
- Draft papers and reports, as necessary, including the provision of financial and associated data outside the organisation such as Freedom of Information requests.
Essential Skills/Requirements
Knowledge
- Qualified accountant [ACA, ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA]
- Highly numerate and literate.
Experience, skills & abilities
- Relevant leadership and management experience at senior/director level.
- Proven experience of leading, motivating and managing teams and implementing change across a range of functions, to achieve outstanding results for the organisation.
- Proven success in creating and maintaining effective policies, processes, and procedures in support of the delivery of organisational objectives.
- Excellent stakeholder management skills and experience, including ability to negotiate and influence decisions, resources, and processes.
- Excellent leadership and strong interpersonal and communication skills –both written and oral.
Personal Qualities
- Passionate about achieving the best for children – especially the most vulnerable.
- Understanding of and willingness to abide by the 7 Standards of Public Office
Application process
To apply please download the job specification and send an anonymised (name-blind) copy of your CV, statement of suitability, candidate information form (application form) and the Equality and Diversity form (diversity form) to our recruitment team at [email protected] by 23:55 on Monday 29th May 2023. The job description will not be available online after the closing date. Applicants are advised to download a copy for future use.
Your statement of suitability should be anonymised (name-blind) and should set out how you meet the essential skills and any relevant experience to the key duties of the role (no more than 1,000 words).
Applications will be sifted against the requirements set out in the essential skills/experience listed in the job description.
Interviews for short-listed candidates are expected to take place during the w/c 12th June 2023.
Please note that the successful candidate will be expected to join at the base of the salary band unless joining on a level move from another government department at a higher salary.
Recruitment process
Our recruitment process is based on fair and open competition and is committed to:
- ensuring equality of opportunity for all applicants, with selection decisions made solely on the basis of merit.
- ensuring all applications are dealt with professionally and in confidence.
- ensuring applicants are treated with respect and courtesy at all times.
- candidates invited for interview will be asked if they require any adjustments, we will make every effort to provide reasonable support.
- procedures are in place to ensure that the OCC is safe environment for the children we come into contact with, as part of our work. All applicants are required to complete a Child Protection Declaration Form and Declaration of Criminal Convictions.
Additional benefits
- Development opportunities including access to senior people within our organisation and across Whitehall and Westminster.
- A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options.
- A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity.
- Civil service pension scheme, although our staff are public servants not civil servants.
- Cycle to work scheme
- Season ticket loan
Checks
Successful applicants are required to provide proof of their entitlement to work in the UK and complete a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service process to an enhanced level.