Job Description
Responsibilities:\n\n * To ensure the Education Funding Team meets payment deadlines and maintains payment processes so that all agreed payments are completed for all of Children and Young People’s Services and ongoing development of systems and processes.\n\n * Lead on business continuity and risk management processes, funding and payment processes for CYP Services, ensuring escalations to WNC Leadership Team are made, identifying risks with directorate performance to the Children and Young People’s Service Senior Management Team and ensuring mitigations are put in place to address these risks.\n\n * To manage the Education Team to implement the Authorities agreed processes to devolve High Needs funding to a wide variety of education providers\n\n * Liaise with Schools Finance Business Partners as required, who oversee the total DSG budget to ensure that the LA realises the maximum DSG funding it can from the EFA, and agrees its’ distribution via schools forum.\n\n * Responding to FOI, benchmarking and other requests within relevant timescales and deadlines.\n\n * Attendance and support at management meetings as required – provide information, develop strategies, new processes, contribute to group projects etc\n\n * Provide advice/research information to understand the complexities of High Needs funding and so enable the team and wider colleagues to keep abreast of developments locally, regionally and nationally.\n\n * To lead and manage the Education Funding Team, ensuring proper recruitment, selection, induction, learning and development and day to day operations\n\n * To ensure the LA’s financial corporate standards are adhered to.\n\n * \n\n * Ensure appropriate financial records are maintained and stored to enable LA to evidence all expenditure and answer audit queries.\n\n * \n\n * \n\n * Ensure authorisation processes are strictly observed – by team and colleagues.\n\n * \n\n * \n\n * Support budget holders to provide corporate monthly monitoring returns with accurate forecast updates – provide information, support with system interrogation, develop forecast templates.\n\n * \n\n * \n\n * Highlight budget pressures. Provide evidence to explain budget pressures.\n\n * Manage implementation of complex financial processes, to include advice to team, colleagues and education providers to resolve funding queries and decision making.\n\n * \n\n * Ensure agreed internal systems are followed to promote accuracy, reduce incidence of error and evidence robust authorisation processes and data quality.\n\n * \n\n * \n\n * Devolved responsibility for authorising a wide variety of payments – schools transfer and interface payment runs etc.\n\n * To support all service managers for the Children and Young People department with finance and payment issues. This ensures that all parties are paid and that the income is gained from the work.
Providing support with budget monitoring for all the services within the Children and Young People department\n\n * To ensure that reasonable care is taken at all times for the health, safety and welfare of themselves and other persons and to comply with policies and procedures relating to health and safety within West Northants Council.\n\nKnowledge:\n\nAble to demonstrate a good understanding of Education and local authority policy, statutory duties and responsibilities.\n\nAble to demonstrate understanding of wider Children’s Services areas of responsibility and functions.\n\nExtensive office administrative experience to include complex financial processes.\n\nUnderstanding of financial management, procedures and processes\n\nFully proficient at using IT systems, with a good working knowledge of Microsoft Teams, Windows and Office packages\n\nKnowledge of health and safety legislation\n\nKnowledge of Data Protection and Equal Opportunities legislation and their requirements\n\nKnowledge of budget management\n\nKnowledge of Council policies & procedures\n\nExperience of local authority working and finance/education systems\n\nUnderstanding of project management principles