Senior Business Officer

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About the role

We currently have a vacancy for the role of Senior Business Officer in the Finance section of the SEND Statutory Assessment Business Support Team (30 hours per week). This position will be based at Scott House, Huntingdon - 1 day per week in the office and 3 days per week working from home.

The role will be manage a team of five Business Support Officers who support the service with maintaining accurate budget commitment records using Excel, supporting monthly reporting to our finance partners who inform the Head of Service of the financial position, working with and reconciling monthly budget reports in ERP Gold to enable general ledgers to be kept up to date, processing and payment of High Needs Block funding.

What will you be doing?

Main accountabilities

1. BUSINESS CO-ORDINATION

• Manage the day to day business support activity directly with the service

• Work with peers to provide flexible cover arrangements when required

• Support the development and implementation of business processes to achieve a quality and consistent service.

• Identify and share best practice

• Support changes that impact the Business Support workforce and provide advice to service/team managers and their teams.

• Represent the team at meetings, events and working groups

1. LEADERSHIP & WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

• Lead, motivate and inspire team members in order to develop them in reaching their full potential, ensuring consistency across the service.

• Impart knowledge and expertise through mentoring and coaching

• Contribute to and support the delivery of the workforce development plan

• Support apprentices through their programme of training in the service

• Report on the success of business development activities to teams

• Support the cultural change within Business Support

• Line manage and supervise employees according to supervision and appraisal standards

1. MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

• Support Services and the Business Development Co-ordinator in relation to Business Development (including but not limited to Business Continuity Planning, Risk Management, internal Communications, Accommodation and Freedom of Information)

• Support service/ team work activity, initiatives and events ensuring active participation

• Gather and analyse data as requested by the service

• Advise team/service on emerging and relevant issues relating to the business highlighting areas of concern

• Provide support to managers with self-service systems

1. COMMUNICATION

• Communicate messages clearly and appropriately and provide updates on emerging issues

• Represent the Service at meetings with both internal and external stakeholders

• Engage and work with key partners such as CPFT, LGSS and PCC as appropriate

1. CUSTOMER SERVICE

• Promote excellent customer service across the team

• Proactivity deal, provide solutions and signpost incoming communication by liaising with staff, families and professionals to provide information, advice or support, as directed by the service.

1. FINANCIAL SUPPORT

• Support and help Managers to manage and forecast year end expenditure and identify trends.

• Ensure the business support workforce are adhering to CCC financial policies

• Actively promote cost affective expenditure in accordance with Council Budget requirements.

• Carryout/support relevant financial activities within service area

• Contribute ideas and efficiencies to deliver savings

1. GENERAL

• Support audits, inspections, reviews and new operating systems as and when required

• Advise and inform others on matters relating to own job or section or directorate

• Work across the directorate as required.

• Ability to travel.

About you

The successful candidate must have a good working knowledge of Windows & Microsoft packages (including Word, Excel and Outlook) and experience of using databases. The role involves inputting data into computer systems, dealing with both computer and paper-based documents, answering the telephone and taking messages, supporting colleagues with tasks such as collating data and producing reports.

To be successful in this role you will need to be self-motivated, organised and flexible, with the ability to manage your own workload, prioritise and forward plan. You will have excellent interpersonal skills combined with the ability to represent the service in a positive and professional manner, including communicating with a wide range of internal and external customers.

You must be reliable, have a polite manner and a friendly approach to help you get on with people at all levels. You must be keen to learn and work to agreed targets and deadlines. You will need to be a good team worker but also have the ability to work on your own initiative when required and be able to work under pressure to meet tight deadlines. You must have strong problem solving skills and the ability to take a hands-on role and work independently. The successful candidate will also have proven experience & understanding of working with GDPR regulations.

Experience of financial processes are essential.

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage...

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes

Take a look at our Employment Benefits Brochure attached to this advert to find out more.

About us

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don't meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don't be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers

Attached documents

• Job description and Person specification
• CCC Employment Benefits Brochure [February 2025].pdf