Senior Management Accountant

**Senior Management Accountant**

**Job Summary**

The post holder will be an integral part of the senior financial management team, with the responsibility for providing expert budgetary and financial advice, including the analysis and discussion of complex financial queries, and support to finance andnon-finance staff for a designated range of services.

**Location**: Carlisle

**Job Type**: Temporary

**Duration of booking**: Expected to last 3 months with possible extension

**Proposed start date**: ASAP

**Pay Rates**: £26.50 PAYE inclusive of holiday or £31 Umbrella per hour

**Hours / Working Days**:37.5 hours per week / Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm

**Sector**: Healthcare

**Based**:office based

**Financial Planning and Performance**
- Assist the Finance Managers with the preparation of annual budgets, in liaison with budget holders
- Ensure that the budget setting process is adhered to and that deadlines are met.
- Assist the Finance Managers developing an effective forecasting system for care group/support services and ensure that this is maintained.
- Report care group/support services budgetary performance, overseeing production of accurate budget statements within strict deadlines, ensuring the information within the general ledger is maintained accurately.
- Design and develop supplementary reports analysing activity and cost on significant pay and non pay areas and present these reports for budget holders and finance managers.

**Budgetary control**
- Meet with budget holders, including care group managers, on a regular basis to discuss issues raised in the monthly budget reports.
- Challenge budget holders where financial performance is unacceptable, and work with them to identify the causes of overspends and ensure that they implement effective corrective action including the preparation and monitoring of recovery plans where necessary.
- Responsible for ensuring the budget amendment process is adhered to.
- Maintain an understanding of budget variances and financial issues for designated services, and ensure that the Finance Manager are briefed on key issues, risks and the progress of corrective action

**Business Support**:

- Provide expert budget and financial advice to budget holders and care group Managers ensuring that decisions are made within the constraints available to them. This includes dealing with information that is sensitive and contentious.
- Support budget holders in identification and delivery of savings plans and monitor the achievement of the savings against the plans.
- Build strong working relationships with non senior finance managers and budget holders and gain an understanding of the specific issues affecting budgets, using this relationship to inform financial reporting and finance managers.
- Support the Senior Finance staff in the preparation of complex monthly monitoring returns as appropriate and other ad hoc returns to ensure that returns are submitted in accordance with NHSI and DoH deadlines

**Financial Reporting**
- Oversee the preparation of income, expenditure and budget journals and posting to the ledger.
- Review the budget/expenditure reports for each cost centre on a monthly basis and take any corrective action as necessary.
- Provide the final monthly Income and Expenditure report along with year-end projections and report to care group Managers and budget holders.
- Coordinate the production of the monthly variance analysis ensuring the detail is sufficient to support the preparation of the Executive and Board reports.
- Ensure details of the Trust’s Cost Improvement Plan are maintained and achievements against plan are monitored. Work with budget holders to ensure corrective action taken or alternative savings plans identified when slippage occurs against planned and agreedCIPs
- Prepare ad hoc reports and analyses for care group Managers, budget holders and other managers.

**Service Developments**
- Provide detailed costings for budget holders and Care Group Managers to enable decisions to be made regarding the viability of proposed developments (e.g. business cases) and service changes.
- Provide robust challenge to the assumptions and viability of the proposed developments and services changes.
- Analyse historic data from several sources to make informed estimates of future trends.
- Promote the use of service line reporting/PLICS, interpreting data as well as communicating and investigating the implications of the resulting data with budget holders and care group Managers.