Finance Business Partner (various), Financial Strategy and Fiscal Events Advisor

Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government; London; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government is seeking a Finance Business Partner to support Departmental priorities in finance and policy areas. The role involves building relationships, providing financial analysis, and advising senior stakeholders on strategic objectives. Candidates should have strong problem-solving and communication skills and ideally be working towards an accountancy qualification.

Benefits

Civil Service pension with employer contribution

Learning and development opportunities

Flexible working options

Culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

Qualifications

• Strong financial analysis and communication skills.
• Experience in business partnering or strategic finance is desirable.
• Ability to provide insights and strategic understanding.

Responsibilities

• Build strong relationships with stakeholders.
• Provide financial advice, analysis, and challenge.
• Produce high-quality outputs under tight deadlines.

Skills

Problem-solving

Collaboration

Communication

Analytical skills

Stakeholder management

Education

Accountancy qualification (CIMA, CIPFA, ACCA)

Tools

Excel

Job description

Location

Bristol, Darlington, London, Manchester, Wolverhampton

About the job Are you a strong advocate for change and continuous improvement?

Would you bring strong influencing skills and be comfortable in pushing back to your stakeholders when required?

If so, we have an exciting opportunity for you to join our team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and we'd love to hear from you!

MHCLG Finance is an exciting and varied place to work. We work closely with teams across the department, including policy and finance, and externally, such as HMT, to develop government policy on issues ranging from the government’s local growth agenda, building more homes, and tackling homelessness and rough sleeping. We ensure policies are value for money, deliverable and provide analysis, translate data and offer financial advice to provide insight.

We are friendly teams who prioritise development and wellbeing with ample chance for stretch in these roles. Successful candidates will have access to extensive professional development resources as part of the Government Finance Community, including career development. support We are constantly seeking to improve how we work and welcome innovation. We are looking forward to hiring people with a range of backgrounds and perspectives to bring new expertise and fresh thinking.

Job description

The post holder will be supporting a range of Departmental priorities in policy areas. Finance Business Partner (FBP) There are two FBP Teams.

The Finance and Performance: Corporate, Communities and Local Government team leads on supporting delivery of the local government, growth and communities agenda to revive the fortunes of overlooked parts of the country. It also supports delivery of integration programmes, resilience and emergencies, building safety , as well as directly supporting the Chief Finance Officer and the critical role of our corporate functions.

The Finance and Performance: Housing division leads on supporting delivery across a range of high-profile multi-billion programmes covering housing supply, regeneration, social housing and humanitarian resettlement. As part of this team, you will be engaging with senior leaders across the department in shaping how the department’s strategic objectives are delivered, and Homes England, MHCLG’s largest Arm’s Length Body, in overseeing and scrutinising performance against delivery metrics.

Strategic Finance is a high-performing, high profile team that sits at the heart of the MHCLG Finance Directorate – one of the highest regarded finance functions in Whitehall that is consistently at the centre of decision making. We regularly advise ministers on how we find the budgets to deliver on emerging priorities, as well as how we best fund all our existing commitments. We are responsible for negotiations with HM Treasury at fiscal events and for setting long-term financial strategy for the department. There are significant amounts of senior and external exposure with opportunity for stretch in the teams.

The main responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Building strong relationships through being confident and credible with stakeholders to ensure you become a trusted advisor, ensuring principles such as value for money and wider objectives are considered effectively, during for example policy development and fiscal events.
• Working closely with central strategy, policy, and finance colleagues across the department to bring together complex information on the financial implications of policy options, demonstrating a willingness to be a team player.
• Providing clear financial advice, analysis and challenge to support effective decision-making across the department, including consideration of overarching principles.
• Liaise with a diverse range of stakeholders to help develop high quality business cases for new funding schemes, providing expert advice for business cases on Green Book and Managing Public Money principles.
• Demonstrating strong communications skills and supporting directorates in maintaining an understanding of their budgeting position whilst producing robust forecasts, providing advice and support to colleagues whilst ensuring issues are identified and correctly dealt with as required.
• Ensure the financial systems containing forecasts and working budgets are kept up to date with clear audit trails and running the necessary financial reports, identifying trends and providing insight to senior stakeholders.
• Independently producing high quality outputs at pace, being flexible to emerging priorities and pressures, with a strong attention to detail then being able to confidently and effectively present this information.

Person specification

Candidates will have a strong problem solving, collaboration and communication skills with the ability to deliver at pace whilst effectively managing competing priorities. Prior experience working in a business partnering or strategic finance role is desirable but not essential. We are also interested in hearing from candidates from a policy background who are willing to develop their finance skills.

Strengths we are looking for are:

• Providing insight and strategic understanding to ensure financial objectives are embedded into the decision-making process. Analysing and interpreting numerical information and communicating it clearly, making the connection with real-world outcomes and political needs.
• The ability to build a network across MHCLG and other government departments that support collaborative working in order to deliver high quality outputs, for example on excel, that can be used to present to senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrating the confidence, composure and credibility needed to challenge and influence senior stakeholders in a considered and professional manner, influencing them effectively when required.
• Recognising change as an opportunity to deliver efficiency and innovation acting as an agent for change when you identify the chance to protect, drive and add value.
• Independently work at pace to tight deadlines – you will be responsible for delivering multiple pieces of work simultaneously, needing to be proactive in managing your workload.
• Be a qualified accountant or have a demonstrable willingness to qualify, ideally through actively studying for an accountancy qualification (an accountancy allowance is available to successful CCAB qualified candidates: CIMA, CIPFA, ACCA, ICAEW, ICAS, ICAI)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £40,669, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £11,781 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

• Learning and development tailored to your role

An environment with flexible working options

• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• ACivil Service pensionwith an employer contribution of 28.97%

For more information and to apply, please visit our website via the apply button below.