Lead Costing & Productivity Accountant

Job overview

The Lead Costing and Productivity Accountant has significant financial reporting responsibility. The role helps lead the costing function, in particular the processing, analysis and interpretation of the Group’s income and costs for national mandatory returns, internal reporting and strategic decision-making. It covers patient-level costing, service line reporting and benchmarking, and ensures that costing intelligence is used to inform productivity analysis and improvement. The role does not hold responsibility for productivity reporting in its own right.

The post holder will develop robust costing information that enables the Group to understand the cost drivers underpinning productivity, identify opportunities and communicate meaningful costing insights to internal and external stakeholders.

They will influence and support senior managers, finance colleagues and clinicians to use costing data effectively for performance management, business analysis, benchmarking and decision-making.

The role will improve the use of data and digital tools across Group Finance, including Power BI reporting and visualisation, to strengthen costing analysis, benchmarking and the use of costing information to identify and assess productivity opportunities.

Working with clinical and finance teams, the post holder will support the identification and clear communication of opportunities across the BSW Hospitals Group.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will lead the development and implementation of the Group's costing framework, ensuring that policies, methodologies, controls and governance arrangements are applied consistently across all organisations within the BSW Hospitals Group. They will provide expert interpretation of national guidance, oversee compliance with mandatory costing requirements and establish robust assurance processes to support the quality, integrity and auditability of costing information.

The role will be responsible for leading major costing programmes and coordinating activity across Finance, Informatics, operational services and external partners. This includes managing national costing submissions, overseeing the development and maintenance of costing systems, leading the implementation of new methodologies and digital solutions, and ensuring that data flows, processes and reporting arrangements remain effective, resilient and fit for purpose. The post holder will also represent the Group within regional and national costing networks and contribute to the development of best practice.

The post holder will provide professional leadership to the Costing team, including line management, workforce planning, performance management and staff development. They will build effective relationships with senior clinicians, managers and external stakeholders, provide specialist training and advice, lead change initiatives and support internal and external assurance reviews.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Act as the Group’s specialist lead for costing and lead the development of the Group costing strategy, interpreting national requirements and determining the methodologies, technical approaches and priorities needed to improve the quality and value of costing information.
• Establish the membership and operation of appropriate costing steering or assurance groups through which the Group can develop the use of costing information, including its application to productivity analysis, provide assurance and share best practice using appropriate frameworks and approaches.
• Lead a continuous improvement process for service line reporting and patient-level costing, co-ordinating input from finance and service managers to review and challenge highly complex source information and produce regular costing information for planning and performance management.
• Ensure that the Group meets national cost collection deadlines by co-ordinating the work of the Costing team with Informatics, service managers and finance colleagues in producing robust, accurate and auditable costing data.
• Ensure that costing and service line reporting data is rolled out effectively and used widely across the Group to support decision-making and analysis, including cost improvement programmes and national initiatives.

Please see attached Job Description for further details.