Head of Divisional Finance

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board.

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, (LGT), is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.

Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup.

We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 - the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional. In the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.

To achieve this we value Respect, Compassion, and Inclusion; Being accountable over staying comfortable; Listening over always knowing best; and Succeeding together over achieving alone. You can read more about our visions and values here

Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as "good" or "outstanding" in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.

Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.

LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King's College London's GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.

We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham.

Job overview

Lewisham and Greenwich NHST Trusts (LGT) vision is to be exceptional and we are seeking an experienced accountant as Head of Divisional Finance to join our award winning Finance Team to help us realise this. Experienced in financial management.

The South East London Finance Academy is committed to fostering professional development and career growth for all with a particular aim of enhancing opportunities for under-represented groups and improving the diversity of our finance community.

This means, that as part of our Secondment Pledge, this permanent role is advertised with the flexibility of a potential secondment opportunity for the successful candidate. If you would like to explore this flexibility, please discuss with your current line manager and raise for discussion with the recruiting manager, this will not adversely affect your application in any way. Whilst all secondments will require agreement from both the host and receiving organisations, all organisations within SEL are committed to approaching this conversation positively.

If successful, and you would like to take up the secondment opportunity, you will need to complete the Secondment Request Form found here South East London: Secondment Request Form to aid discussion with your host and receiving organisations. On successful completion of the secondment, and in collaboration with your receiving organisation, you will have the opportunity to convert the secondment to a substantive appointment.

Main duties of the job

As an integral part of the divisional management team, you will play a critical role in shaping services within budget. We are seeking a dynamic Head of Divisional Finance to join our Senior Finance Team, leading the delivery of financial policy, performance, and value for money across our organisation. Working across all of our sites this pivotal role offers the opportunity to provide strategic vision, expert advice, and operational leadership, ensuring robust financial processes and controls that support modern, patient-focused services.

The post holder is a senior Finance professional within LGT and a member of the Senior Finance Team and are responsible for leading and delivering financial policy, performance and value for money requirements. The post holder will ensure the delivery of an efficient and effective business partner financial service.

The post holder will provide leadership, strategic and professional management combined with operational responsibility for the delivery of business partner financial services and advice working with the Associate Director of Finance (ADoF), executive directors and other senior managers in the development and delivery of robust financial processes and controls, to oversee the provision of a modernised, patient focused service across LGT by providing innovative, pro-active advice and support to the organisation on financial and service strategies and approaches.

Working for our organisation

Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:

1. Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development
2. Widening access (anchor institution) and employability
3. Improving the experience of staff with disability
4. Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development
5. Making equalities mainstream

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Strategic Responsibilities

Provide commentaries to support the financial information provided.

Producing a rolling five-year financial plan for the directorate in conjunction with the Head of Income and Planning (HoIP).

Providing a lead role for the directorate on strategic business development, service expansion, improvement and process redesign techniques and developing and presenting ideas

Forge positive internal and external working relationships, in order to support effective management approaches to achieve trust objectives

Operational Responsibilities - Financial Management

Deputise for the ADoF as required

Support the ADoF and HoIP in formulating and agreeing a robust annual planning and budget setting process

Manage the 1 * 8b Finance Business Partners (FBPs) and 1 * 8a Divisional Accountants (DAs)

Produce a robust, bottom-up financial forecast on a monthly basis, which is owned by the Clinical Directorates, where finances triangulate with activity, expenditure and workforce forecasts

Be a visible champion of IuRPs throughout the organisation, helping and enabling Directorates to produce and deliver local savings whiles contributing to shape Trust wide savings initiatives

Work closely to support the Improvement Delivery Team in producing clear and accurate reporting of budgeted, actual and forecast IuRPs

Work closely with the Head of Contracting (HoC) and HoIP on the financial evaluation of tenders for contracted out services by undertaking comprehensive financial analysis of the contractual documentation and make appropriate recommendations

Support the Trust's Reference Cost submission. Investigate differences between the Trust's costs and those of peers and the national average. Provide accurate information to the Costing Team

Support the development and roll out of Service Line Management to enable improvements in financial management and service delivery. And incorporate information to the Trust Management Executive, Finance and Performance Committee and Trust Board

Undertake the production of any ad-hoc information requests as appropriate.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• CCAB/ CIMA Qualified
• Evidence of continued professional development

Desirable criteria

• Educated to Masters Level
• Better Business Cases (Practitioner)

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience in operating at a strategic level in a leadership role, working with multiple stakeholders, developing and fostering effective partnership approaches, acquired through training and practical experience
• Leading financial performance management arrangements across a large complex organisation
• Managing a finance team including recruitment, career development, performance and work evaluation
• Substantial experience of working autonomously and independently with senior stakeholders to deliver project objectives
• Led on transition or change management projects
• Experience in interpreting national guidance and implementing locally

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Knowledge of statutory accounts procedures and guidelines and experience of delivering these
• Excellent IT skills including the use of complex spreadsheets and databases
• Able to analyse highly complex issues involving material drawn from various sources, sometimes conflicting
• Highly effective leadership, interpersonal, influencing and change management skills
• Outstanding communication skills - verbal, written and via the use of high-level presentation tools and adept at handling politically sensitive situations
• Ability to manage own workload and make informed decisions and judgements on the basis of experience and such facts as are available, working tight and often changing deadlines
• Time management skills

Personal Qualities

Essential criteria

• Focused
• No problem working under significant pressure
• Highly organised
• Inspires staff though clarity of objectives, hard work and interest in their careers and personal development
• Relationship builder and approachable
• Able to manage conflict in an open manner
• Sociable and outgoing

We reserve the right to close the post before the stated closing date, please apply early. We do not contact applicants with the outcome of the shortlisting. If you have been shortlisted, you will receive an invite to an assessment day or interview.

As a local employer and anchor institution we work closely with our community to recruit locally and we welcome applications from the widest variety of people to ensure our workforce are reflective of the local communities which we serve. We encourage all suitable candidates to apply including if you are Black, Asian or other ethnic minorities, live with a disability (visible or not) or are LGBT+. We have a number of active staff networks including Disability, LGBT+, Multicultural Inclusion and Women's staff networks to bring staff together and celebrate diversity across our whole workforce.

Please note that sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route is subject to Trust allocation and UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) approval.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Documents to download

• JD (PDF, 336.0KB)
• Working at LGT (PDF, 4.2MB)
• Visa and Certificate of Sponsorship Information for Applicants (PDF, 3.8MB)
• Candidates Guidance on Applying (PDF, 175.2KB)
• Candidate Guidance on the use of AI (PDF, 3.8MB)