Senior Accounts Officer - Trainee Surveyor

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About the role

FOR INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY

The Senior Accounts Officer - Trainee Surveyor is responsible for supporting the delivery of professional estate management of the corporate property portfolio. This portfolio is varied and includes several different property types including farmland, headquarter offices, parks, leisure centres, adult care centres, children's centres, libraries, civic sites and schools.

The Senior Accounts Officer - Trainee Surveyor is required to provide finance support to budget managers and other associated parties, to assist the Finance Business Partner (FBP) in month end and year end reporting under the supervision of the Senior Asset Manager (SAM) to ensure that operations and budgets are being managed effectively enabling compliance with Financial and other regulations. In addition, the role will include training in estate management under the supervision of the surveying team. The post holder will attend, as necessary, occasional meetings of the council and its committees inside of normal working hours.

What will you be doing?

1. Monitor, supervise and appraise the performance of day-to-day budgeting for the SAM corporate property portfolio utilising the Council's financial system.
2. Support both the SAM and FBP with analysis of financial information, provide advice where appropriate or signpost to other colleagues, to ensure effective budget management.
3. Support project work and the surveying team to generate orders to suppliers, contractors, and consultants.
4. Maintain allocated major supplier accounts (review and challenge open orders, receipt orders, process invoices, reconciliation of statements, resolve queries and completing journals) to enable the Council to meet its contract terms in relation to payment.
5. Provide a detailed working knowledge and overview of the existing systems and business processes to enable the FBP to ensure high quality and accurate financial / project information reporting.
6. Support other members of the Estates Management Team by producing monthly debt reports and helping to reduce this and provide recommendations to the surveying team and SAM regarding route to escalate and resolve.
7. To assist with the delivery of estates management casework including freehold and leasehold disposal, lease renewals, rent reviews, licences including wayleaves to maximise value from the estate. Provide reports and advise the surveying team on the recommendations in those reports.
8. Support the surveying team with procuring specialist valuations and technical advice ensuring terms of reference accurately reflect the Councils requirements.
9. Ensure accurate records are provided to the data input officer and support the asset valuation programme, at times liaising with the external valuers, finance and audit to ensure valuation deadlines are met.
10. Site visits and inspections meeting stakeholders and manage boundary disputes.

About you

FOR INTERNAL CANDIDATES ONLY

Ideally you will have a degree and be a member of the Association of Accounting Technicians (or equivalent). Associate membership of the RICS or willingness to study to gain a professional surveying qualification is a must. You will be self-motivated with a minimum of 3 years' experience working in a public sector property team. You will have excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to manage difficult or challenging situations. Most importantly you will be a team player. The postholder must hold a full current UK driving license or be willing to obtain a driving license. The post is flexible and will require both home working and office working to be agreed with the Senior Asset Manager to best support the wider Estates Team.

If you would like to discuss this role then please contact James Ellis Estates@NorthNorthants.Gov.Uk

Our benefits

Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we're transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.

You'll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!

Why choose us?

We offer a vibrant working environment with:

• a competitive salary
• a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
• lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
• generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
• hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.

We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.

About us

Our Values and Behaviours

Our values define who we are and how we operate, by forming the foundation for how we interact with our customers, colleagues and provide our services. They are also at the forefront of our decision making and delivery and are:

Customer-focused
Respectful
Efficient
Supportive
Trustworthy

Our Key Commitments

Our key commitments help ensure that the priorities we make, now and in the future, maintain the necessary breadth of focus in those areas that we believe matter most.

We are proud to be a recognised Disability Confident Employer and is committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.

North Northamptonshire Council re-signed the Armed Forces Covenant in June 2024 which highlights the Council's pledge to support the Armed Forces community. The council obtained the silver status award for the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) and we are now currently working towards achieving Gold status.

Further information can be found at Jobs and careers | North Northamptonshire Council (northnorthants.gov.uk)