Bristol Council - Finance Manager

Remedy Recruitment Group; England; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Bristol City Council seeks two permanent Finance Managers for the Children and Education team, focusing on financial oversight of services that support children and families. The roles require candidates with significant experience in budgeting, project management, and local authority operations to drive impactful financial decisions.

Qualifications

• Experience in Local Authority, NHS, or social care services.
• Complex financial models proficiency.
• Experience with Dedicated Schools Grant management.

Responsibilities

• Support Children's Social Care team with financial aspects of placements and transformation projects.
• Assist Education and Inclusion teams on Home to School Transport and Dedicated Schools Grant.

Skills

Monitoring budgets

Business partnering

Project Management

Driving savings

Education

Fully qualified finance professional

Job description

Bristol City Council is looking for two new, permanent Finance Managers for Children and Education team. The Children and Education Directorate supports all children's services in Bristol, from children in care, asylum seekers and fostering in Social Care, to schools, special education needs, adult education, admissions and transport within Education Services. The work within the directorate is focussed on supporting children and families wherever they are in the city.

The finance team that supports this division has equally wide-ranging responsibilities, and includes:
* All school funding matters, the monitoring and compliance of as well as support, advice and training.
* Preparing statutory returns and government claims, such as the Section 251 and Dedication Schools Grant Assurance statements.
* Providing finance support to large scale projects such as the Safety Valve Programme, Our Families Transformation and assessing financial implications of new HR and policy initiatives.
* Monitoring over £620m of revenue funding and an associated capital programme.
* Working with services and stakeholders to support the aims of the council.

There is never a dull day, and no two days are every quite the same. It is a busy but rewarding service area to be in where your work really does make a difference to the young people of our city.

All candidates must be fully qualified and have experience in:
* Monitoring budgets, assisting in the production of forecasts and leading reporting.
* Business partnering, working more senior staff, budget managers and those with limited financial understanding. To also include experience of working with complex financial models.
* Project Management, ideally both in terms of leading financial projects but also scrutinising project management documents to test delivery.
* Driving through savings through business transformation and restructures.

The first role is focused around support to the Children's Social Care team, supporting on Placements, Fostering, Asylum Teams and associated transformation and capital projects. In addition to the criteria mentioned above the successful applicant must have experience in Local Authority, NHS or any other organisation dealing with social care or demand led services more generally.

The second role is focused around support to the Education and Inclusion teams, with a clear element supporting on Home to School Transport and Dedicated Schools Grant. In addition to the criteria mentioned above the successful applicant must have experience of Dedicated Schools Grant including Schools, High Needs, Early Years, and Central Schools Services Block, Section 251 and Deficit Management Plan. Experience of Schools Forum would be an advantage.

Office attendance is not mandated but the person appointed will be required to attend the building as needed, whether for in-person meetings such as School Forum, or committee chair briefings, and for team events when they are held.

If you are interested in one, or both of these roles, please send your updated CV in the first instance.