Specialist Restructuring Senior Manager

Department for Education; City Of London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Department for Education is seeking a Senior Finance and Restructuring professional to lead complex financial assessments and advise on strategic options. You will work within a small, specialist team of accountants and insolvency practitioners, managing a portfolio of restructuring cases from analysis to credit papers.

The role requires handling external stakeholder relationships, delivering results at pace, and communicating sophisticated financial concepts to Ministers and senior officials.

Qualifications

• Strong financial assessment and/or modelling experience.
• Proven ability to manage restructuring under uncertainty and complexity.
• Ability to deliver results quickly in challenging environments.
• Ability to explain financial and legal concepts to diverse stakeholders.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Undertake reviews into restructuring situations and make recommendations to senior colleagues.
• Prepare credit committee papers in PowerPoint and Word.
• Incorporate non-financial information to produce integrated financial and non-financial advice.
• Manage transactions through to completion, including forecasting funding.
• Engage with stakeholders across government and the finance profession to keep on top of leading practice.

Skills

Finance restructuring

Stakeholder engagement

Communication skills

Problem solving

Leadership

Education

Professional accountant qualification

Insolvency Practitioner

Tools

MS Office

Excel

PowerPoint

AI tools

Job description

Location

Coventry (CV1 2WT), Darlington (DL1 5QE), London (SW1P 3BT), Manchester (M1 2WD), Sheffield (S1 2FJ)

About the job

Job summary

This position is an exciting opportunity in the FFO (Funding and Financial Oversight) group.

FFO ensures the right amount of money goes to the right providers at the right time, and is spent in the right way.

FFO leads on developing the financial and governance framework used by academies and post-16 education providers to manage and report on their spending; identifying institutions at risk of financial failure, providing expert financial assessment and advice; and where necessary undertaking investigations into financial irregularity.

The role is part of a small specialist restructuring team of highly qualified accountants and insolvency practitioners. Each member is responsible for managing a portfolio of restructuring cases including their own analysis and credit papers.

Job description

The role operates in a variety of generalist and specialist settings. Therefore, duties will vary over time and the post holder will need to be adaptable and resilient, ready to undertake a diverse range of tasks including the following:

• Undertake reviews into restructuring situations, dissect complex evidence, add value to the proposed options, establish alternatives to those already identified and make recommendations to senior colleagues, including Ministers.
• This will include outsourcing some work to accountancy and law firms and undertaking your own analysis and due diligence in Excel, and writing credit committee papers in both PowerPoint and Word.
• Incorporate non-financial information and data, such as real estate and curriculum, to produce high quality integrated financial and non-financial advice.
• Manage transactions (eg mergers) through to completion, including accurate forecasting and payment of funding.
• Raising general awareness of restructuring issues, identifying risks across the DfE and education providers funded by the DfE.
• Engaging with stakeholders across government, the wider stakeholder community and the finance profession to keep on top of leading practice.
• Manage stakeholders’ needs and expectations effectively so that Departmental objectives and priorities are met.
• Make the links between policy and/or business delivery within the intervention and restructuring environments and wider where appropriate.
• Contribute to the wider management of the FFO group, including through leading roles in corporate activities and risk management.
• Proactively manage performance by setting clear and stretching objectives for colleagues and provide regular constructive feedback.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• You will have a high level of technical skill in public and/or private sector corporate finance and restructuring environments, including detailed financial assessment and/or modelling.
• You will have proven experience in reacting effectively to unplanned restructuring situations, being able to reach consensual decisions with imperfect information.
• You will be able to demonstrate the ability to effectively deliver results at pace in challenging environments.
• You will be able to demonstrate the ability to deliver difficult messages and communicate complicated financial and legal concepts to stakeholders with different points of view.
• You will demonstrate excellent interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to make an impact at the highest levels.
• You will have experience of representing an organisation externally, managing external stakeholder relationships and securing confidence in decision-making through partnership working.
• You will demonstrate high levels of IT proficiency, to quickly use MS Office, AI and other tools to aggregate and analyse diverse information sources, build and interrogate Excel models and produce high quality outputs including business cases in Power-point or Word.
• Professionally qualified accountant, auditor or equivalent: e.g. ACA, ACCA, CIMA, Insolvency Practitioner or relevant and comparable financial restructuring experience.

Desirable Criteria:

• You will have worked in or with the education sector and/or the public sector more generally.

Desirable criteria will only be assessed at interview, in the event of a tie break situation, to make an informed decision.

Qualifications

Professionally qualified accountant, auditor or equivalent: e.g. ACA, ACCA, CIMA, Insolvency Practitioner or relevant and comparable financial restructuring experience.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing