An opportunity has arisen for the role of Senior Management Accountant, acting as the Financial Management lead for one of the Trust’s clinical divisions and playing a key role in managing and reporting its financial position.
The post holder will provide expert financial advice to operational colleagues and lead their staff in providing an effective financial management and reporting service.
The successful candidate will be a fully qualified CCAB or CIMA qualified accountant with significant financial management experience in a large organisation. They will have experience of managing and developing staff and will have demonstrated the ability to build effective working relationships and deliver timely and accurate financial reporting.
We strongly encourage contacting our recruitment partner to discuss the role in more detail.
Interview date: 27th January 2025
The Senior Management Accountant’s main duties will be to:
• Provide expert financial advice and oversight of financial management across their division
• Influence investment decisions and priorities for the division, including providing financial input into business cases and informing management decisions
• Support operational teams with addressing budget variances and delivering challenging efficiency targets
• Lead the month end process for their area of responsibility, ensuring timely and accurate reporting
• Co-ordinate the budget setting and forecasting processes
• Manage and develop Management Accountants and other support staff
Details of additional duties are provided in the Job Description document.
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.
We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.
Our Services:
Acute Care
Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
Primary Care
Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
Community Services
Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.
Specialist Regional Services
We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.
Achievements:
• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme
KEY DUTIES
• To establish and maintain strong working relationships with both key internal and external individuals to ensure effective working. The post holder will be expected to provide advice to the Assistant Director of Operations, Directorate leads and Clinical Leads over financial issues of all aspects of service provision of the Care Group/ Corporate Function.
• To influence investment decisions and priorities of several departments within the Division. This could entail a wide range of management decisions including changing skill mix structure within department and new initiatives to improve patient care.
• To develop and evaluate formal business case proposals from the Division including presenting financial information to the senior management team. This may include estimating consequential financial and personnel implications on all areas of the Trust.
• Support the commissioning process of any service provision to external organisation including costing of such proposed service.
• Ensure all aspects of the Trust’s financial policies are adhered to; value-for-money secured and financial stability achieved. Provide training to non-finance managers and Clinicians as and when required, ensuring Corporate Governance is adhered to.
• Contribute to the accuracy and production of the corporate financial reporting including statutory returns, final accounts and Reference Costs submission.
• Co-ordinate the annual Budget Setting process, ensuring that departmental budgets are developed to take account service pressures in accordance with constraints of funding. This consists of planning and organisation of a wide range of departmental budgets, which requires formulation and adjustment of several variables affecting both income and expenditure.
• Ensure financial reports to the Division are developed and amended to meet the evolving information requirements and achieve consistency with corporate reporting to both Finance Committee and Trust Board. Also to ensure these reports are produced timely and accurately in accordance to agreed timetable.
• Demonstrate understanding and fully utilise all relevant forms of technology and information systems in order to ensure accurate interpretation and effective use of resources. Continually review fit for purpose compared to organisational requirements.
• To monitor the financial performance (both income and expenditure) of the Divisions, identifying and reporting variances; and actively agree corrective management action where necessary.
• To participate in maintaining and monitoring the Trust’s General Reserves ensuring that correct distribution is made from these earmarked reserves. To communicate with senior finance team of any forecast slippage/shortage on reserves in order that resources are allocated in an appropriate manner.
• To utilise information streams such as SLR / PLICS / IPR / SLAM / PCB / Qlikview within the Division and utilise the information they contain as a lever for change.
• To assist the Head of Financial Management with the completion of the Trusts financial plan and its subsequent monitoring throughout the year.
• To support service units within own area of responsibility to develop, assess and implement a cost improvement plan (CIP) and to ensure ownership and understanding of the plan by budget holders. To ensure that a clear CIP plan is in place and that variances from plans are fully understood and explained. Promote a positive culture of engagement with operational services on CIP.
• Support in the identification and monitoring of divisional cost improvement plans. Provide full costing of such schemes and details of realisation and liaise with Quality leads to ensure all schemes are fully reviewed as part of the Trust policy.
• Promotion of greater financial management and financial control amongst the divisional management team. Provide appropriate advice and support with the divisional structure to ensure all efforts are made to achieve financial stability.
• To maintain the integrity of the financial ledger and other financial systems to ensure that compliance with audit requirements is adhered to.
• To ensure Final Accounts working papers are prepared in accordance with procedures and timescales and comply with audit requirements.
• To ensure that all communication with others is conducted in a professional and competent manner and is followed up in writing when required.
CLINICAL & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
• Maintain Professional Registration
• Adhere to relevant Code of Practice of Professional body.
ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES
• To update financial management reporting timetables ensuring synchronisation with statutory, external reporting timetables and internal Trust reporting timetables, keeping relevant departments updated on changes.
• To ensure working procedure notes exist for the post holder duties within this job description (e.g. routine, statutory, and non-routine ad-hoc reporting duties are documented). Working procedure notes to be regularly updated to reflect current status and to be accessible to appropriate staff at all times.
• To ensure all filing systems are maintained both papers based and electronic.
TEACHING & TRAINING RESPONSBILITIES
• All staff are required to be appraised by their line managers at least once a year at a personal development review meeting where progress made over the last year is discussed and agreed. Focus on the following year’s departmental and personal objectives will be identified, discussed and agreed. Where necessary, help and support will be provided and development opportunities agreed in line with service provision and knowledge and skills competency framework
• To provide training to non-financial managers within the Trust on all matters relating to budgetary control and financial management including effective use of information systems/reports. This will include a requirement to undertake the relevant training seminars with non-financial managers from time to time.
• To be responsible for the management of staff within the Management Accounts Team and to ensure that these staff receive thorough on-the-job training and coaching in the functions allocated to them.
• Act as a mentor for junior staff who is actively undertaking accountancy training. Support and advise the student on the professional competencies that they will be assessed upon by the relevant accountancy body.
• To actively participate in the annual performance review to identify personal development needs.
LINE MANAGEMENT/SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES
• To directly manage and develop the Management Accountant and other support staff. This will encompass one to ones, staff appraisals, setting & reviewing Personal Development Plan/ Continuous Professional Development, sickness monitoring and Health & Safety.
• To ensure that objectives of those staff are reflected through personal development plans through the appraisal process and to give them guidance that will help them deliver.
• To ensure that staff recruitment and selection procedures for posts within the Management Accounts teams are applied effectively to ensure the strong candidates are always appointed.
• To deputise for the Head of Financial Management or Assistant Director of Finance where necessary.
FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
• To continually look to improve by implementing new ways of working and cascading these changes to other Finance Teams where relevant.
RESEARCH & AUDIT
• To contribute towards the Trust’s internal & external audit processes.
This advert closes on Sunday 19 Jan 2025
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