Head of Financial Control - Financial Accounts and Financial Services

Job overview

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust is looking for a Head of Financial Control who can do two things well: keep us safe, and help us get better.

This is a senior leadership role at the heart of our finance function, responsible for the integrity of our financial statements, the strength of our control environment, and our relationship with internal and external audit. You'll be the person the Trust relies on to make sure the accounts are right, the controls hold, and the auditors are satisfied.

But we're not looking for a caretaker. We want someone who sees a clunky reconciliation process or an inefficient month-end close and wants to fix it — someone who's excited by what automation, data analytics and AI can do for financial control, not just familiar with the terms. You'll have real scope to modernise how Financial Control operates: automating what should be automated, simplifying what's become overcomplicated, and freeing up your team's time for the analysis and insight that actually adds value.

If you want a role where "we've always done it this way" is a problem to solve rather than a policy to enforce — and where you'll have the backing of the Deputy CFO to do something about it — we'd like to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

Day to day, you'll be the person who makes sure the Trust's financial statements tell an accurate story — leading the production of month-end accounts, annual reports and governance papers that senior leaders can trust and act on. You'll be the one building the kind of relationship with internal and external audit that turns their findings into real improvements, not just a list of actions to close off.

You'll keep the Trust's finances safe day-to-day — overseeing cash and treasury management, making sure suppliers get paid on time and debt gets collected, and holding the control framework together so it flexes with the organisation rather than getting in its way.

Where this role gets interesting is what you do next. You'll look at the processes your team runs — the reconciliations, the approvals, the month-end scramble — and ask why they still take as long as they do. Then you'll do something about it: applying Lean thinking, automating what should never have needed a human in the first place, and exploring what AI can genuinely do for accuracy and speed, always with a clear eye on the controls that have to stay intact. And you'll lead a team through all of this — building people who are as comfortable redesigning a process as they are defending one at audit.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For a comprehensive list of responsibilities and duties, please kindly refer to the Job Description and Person Specification by downloading the JD and PS attachment in the advert.

If you are an internal applicant there is the option for secondment, all applicants must have the endorsement/support of their line manager prior to application.

If you have a disability that makes submitting this online application difficult and would like assistance, please contact us on bht.recruitment@nhs.net quoting the vacancy reference number.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.