Assistant Finance Business Partner

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has become available to join the Finance department as an Assistant Finance Business Partner, at Sheffield Health Partnership University NHS FT.  We are looking for forward thinking, highly motivated finance professionals.

In line with our commitment to excellence, the Assistant Finance Business Partner position has been designed as a development role.  It is therefore ideal for either a first step into financial management; or as a steppingstone towards a more senior position.  Your initial banding and subsequent progression would be linked to experience, qualifications and behaviours, in line with the Trust’s competency framework.  We are committed to your success, and you would be joining a creative, challenging and supportive team environment.

We are looking for someone who shares the Trusts values and works well with a wide range of people to enable services to deliver high quality care for our service users. Working within NHS finance offers an attractive career, with great opportunities for training and progression.  It also provides an excellent pension scheme, a good level of paid holidays and flexible working options.  The trust is committed to inclusive working practices and offers hybrid home working and options for contracts with reduced hours.

Main duties of the job

The full details of the role are contained within the Person Specification and Job Description, attached.  We welcome applicants from outside the NHS.  For all candidates, we are most interested in your attitude, aptitude and proven ability to learn.

If successful, you would assist the Finance Business Partner to provide finance support to our clinical and corporate leads. The role includes month end reporting, variance analysis and supporting Budget Manager’s to interpret and understand their financial position.  Candidates entering at band 4 level would receive full training and an opportunity to study, in line with the current policy.

As a senior 5 candidate, the Assistant Finance Business Partner role will uniquely allow you to experience all aspects of the department.  We are a small team, so you will have opportunities to gain experience in income, planning, financial accounts and costing and links to the wider health system.  This is, therefore, an ideal position for someone aspiring towards a more senior strategic finance position.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Reporting to the Finance Business Partner the main responsibilities of the role are:-

Supporting Directorates

Responsible for producing high-quality, and relevant, Cost Centre Reports to a strict monthly timetable within policies and procedures agreed with the Finance Business Partner.

Ensure that all input documents are complete and accurate in accordance with agreed procedures and processes and Audit requirements (this will involve analysing confidential streams of data e.g. payroll, purchase ledger, sales ledger etc. and ensuring they are input into the system to meet the monthly and year end timetables).

Work closely with budget managers to ensure the understanding of performance variances. Support managers and clinical staff in developing or revising plans in support of out-turn forecasts for Directorates.  Using data to support a longer-term view of services and take time to understand existing services.

Take a proactive role in liaising with Budget Managers and finance colleagues to ensure that the information contained in budget reports and supporting schedules is accurate and robust.  This will include variance analysis, staff in post lists, income and expenditure analysis.  Effort should be made to use language that is helpful and meaningful to budget holders, in service of patients and service users.

Liaise with budget managers on payroll matters by providing accurate staffing costs when required, amending Authorised Funded Establishments as agreed with the Finance Business Partner and ensure that staff in post lists are updated and correctly coded.  Translate WTE on reports into shift patterns, numbers on a unit etc, so that the data becomes meaningful to the service.

Respond to ad-hoc requests from Budget Managers for financial analysis of all aspects of the service. This includes staff costing analysis to assist skill mix reviews and recruitment planning.

Be proactive in helping the Finance Business Partner support various improvement schemes within directorates.  The aim being to continually improve and challenge existing ways of working to provide an efficient and effective clinical service.

Assist the Finance Business Partner in the production of financial information in support of Business Cases developed by Directorates.  This will include producing, in liaison with Directorate Managers, historic service costs for comparison with future configuration. Any new developments should be in line with both National (The NHS Long Term Plan) and local ICS priorities.

Take a proactive role in the training, education and improved financial awareness of Budget Managers.  This will include highlighting the financial implications of individual actions on budgetary control and ensuring that advice offered complies with the Trust’s Standing Financial Instructions and Schemes of Delegation.  This should include an awareness of the tools available from Future Focused Finance (FFF.)