Senior Finance Business Partner - Group

Ludlow Street Healthcare; Cardiff; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

Ludlow Street Healthcare seeks a Senior Finance Business Partner to enhance financial performance through analysis and stakeholder management within their Financial Planning & Analysis team. This role involves driving budgeting and forecasting processes, conducting performance monitoring, and providing strategic insights for business growth.

Qualifications

• Qualified accountant with strong analytical and financial modelling skills.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and presentation skills.
• Strong understanding of budgeting, forecasting, and performance monitoring.

Responsibilities

• Drive budgeting and forecasting processes, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
• Monitor and analyse financial and operational performance against budget.
• Act as a strategic partner to senior leaders, influencing business strategy.

Skills

Analytical Skills

Financial Modelling

Stakeholder Management

Communication Skills

Presentation Skills

Education

Qualified Accountant

Tools

MS Office

Excel

Job description

We are seeking a highly analytical and commercially astute Senior Finance Business Partner to join our Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) team. This is a pivotal role within the Finance department, driving financial performance through insightful analysis, supporting strategic decision-making, and acting as a trusted advisor to key stakeholders. You will play a critical role in ensuring the financial sustainability and growth of our mental health and learning disability services. The role will lead robust budgeting and forecasting processes, own the annual fee review cycle, and analyse opportunities to support innovation and service development across our Iris Care Group.

Key Responsibilities:

Budgeting & Forecasting

• Drive the budgeting and forecasting processes, ensuring accuracy and alignment with business objectives.
• Develop financial models to provide scenario planning and improve decision-making.
• Responsible for P&L, balance sheet and cashflow forecasting, ensuring bank covenant targets are exceeded at all times.

Performance Monitoring & Analysis

• Monitor and analyse financial and operational performance against budget and prior year performance.
• Conduct variance and trend analysis, recommending corrective actions to enhance financial outcomes where appropriate.
• Provide timely and relevant financial reports, dashboards, presentations and commentary for the Board, Investors and other key stakeholders.

Stakeholder Management

• Act as a strategic partner to senior leaders, providing financial advice and influencing business strategy.
• Collaborate with operational teams to improve financial literacy and cost awareness.
• Understand your audience and deliver information in a clear and user-friendly manner.

Lead Annual Fee Uplift Process

• Communicate and negotiate fee uplifts with funding authorities to recover annual cost increases through weekly placement fees.
• Monitor progress against budget and expected targets. Develop tracking document and reporting to remain appropriate to business needs.
• Recommend targeted approaches and strategies to drive overall uplift achievement.

Investment Appraisal

• Full appraisal of potential capital projects including profitability, KPI's, sensitivity analysis, ROI, NPV and recommendation.
• Monitor actual vs expected performance of live capital projects and provide insight for key variances.
• Ensure potential investment timelines align with cash projections and bank covenants targets are exceeded at all times.

General Responsibilities

• Support other members of the FP&A and Finance teams and act as a mentor to junior members where appropriate.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance the quality and timeliness of financial reporting and analysis.

Requirements:

Essential:

• Qualified accountant.
• Strong analytical and financial modelling skills.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing abilities.
• Ability to interpret complex financial data and translate to actionable insights.
• Strong understanding of budgeting, forecasting, and performance monitoring.
• Highly organized with an ability to manage competing priorities.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Strong presentation skills.
• Board level reporting.
• Proficient in MS Office, particularly Excel

Desirable:

• Experience of the Adult Social Care industry
• Strong knowledge of accounting principles and practices.