Senior Finance Business Partner

Cambridgeshire County Council; Huntingdon; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A local government authority in Huntingdon is seeking a Senior Finance Business Partner to lead financial planning and budgeting processes. This role involves overseeing the financial strategy for local government reorganisation and managing the finance apprenticeship programme. The ideal candidate will be a qualified accountant with experience in local authorities, strong technical skills, and the ability to collaborate effectively across teams. This position offers a comprehensive wellbeing package and professional development opportunities.

Benefits

Comprehensive wellbeing package

Flexible annual leave

Development opportunities

Paid volunteering hours

Employee Recognition Awards

Access to discounts and schemes

Qualifications

• Experience managing finances in a local authority environment is preferred.
• Ability to work proactively and manage a varied workload.
• Excellent collaboration skills with senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Council's corporate financial business planning process.
• Integrate revenue, capital, and treasury planning into a unified financial process.
• Oversee the financial aspects of local government reorganisation.
• Manage the Council's finance apprenticeship scheme.

Skills

Strong technical skills

Relationship building

Budget management

Leadership

Education

Fully qualified accountant or equivalent experience

Job description

About the role

The Finance Service at Cambridgeshire County Council plays a pivotal role in safeguarding public funds and ensuring value for money for local taxpayers. We are a diverse, well-regarded team at the heart of organisational decision-making, supporting leaders across the Council with high-quality financial insight and stewardship.

With local government reorganisation underway in Cambridgeshire, we are entering a period of significant change. This brings both challenges and opportunities, and we are strengthening our team to provide the focus and capacity needed to support this transformation.

We are recruiting a Senior Finance Business Partner to lead the financial elements of the Council's business planning and budgeting processes, and to play a central role in shaping the funding and financial framework for local government reorganisation. The role will also oversee our long-running and successful finance apprenticeship programme.

You will report to the Strategic Finance Business Partner for Corporate Finance and work closely with the Head of Finance, senior leaders, and directors across the organisation.

For more information or to chat about this opportunity please contact Stephen Howarth at [e-mail]

What will you be doing?

You will lead a portfolio of strategic and high-impact work, including:

• Driving the Council's corporate financial business planning process, ensuring funding assumptions and proposed budget changes are robust and evidence-based
• Integrating revenue, capital and treasury planning into a unified and co-ordinated financial planning process
• Leading the financial input into local government reorganisation, including budgeting, funding analysis, and contributing to the finance workstream of the LGR programme
• Managing and developing the Council's finance apprenticeship scheme, building on more than 25 years of successful professional development
• Working closely with the Head of Finance and other senior colleagues, contributing to a varied and stimulating workload with opportunities to develop new skills and shape the future of the service

About you

We are seeking a committed and self-motivated finance professional who can bring both energy and expertise to this role. Alongside strong technical skills, you will be able to build constructive relationships across the Finance Service and the wider Council, supporting a robust business planning process and helping to deliver the financial elements of local government reorganisation.

You will be a fully qualified accountant, or otherwise qualified by experience, with the confidence to work proactively, manage a varied workload, and collaborate effectively with peers and senior stakeholders. Experience within a local authority environment would be an advantage, but we welcome applications from finance professionals with transferable skills who are operating at, or aspiring to operate at, this level.

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage.

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes

Take a look at our Employment Benefits Brochure attached to this advert to find out more.

About us

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don't meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don't be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy. On your application form you can indicate you are disabled. Some examples of reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.