Employer Sheffield Health & Social Care NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Wardsend Road Town Sheffield Salary £26,530 - £36,483 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 29/06/2025 23:59
Assistant Finance Business Partner
NHS AfC: Band 4 - 5
About us
At Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust we provide a range of mental health, learning disability, substance misuse, primary care and other specialist services designed around the needs of people in our city.
We have a dedicated and skilful team of people caring in Sheffield, which you could become a part of.
Our values are at the heart of everything we do. These are: working together for our service users, respect and kindness, everyone counts, commitment to quality, improving lives.
Job overview
An exciting opportunity has become available to join the Finance department as an Assistant Finance Business Partner, at Sheffield Health & Social Care NHS FT. We are looking for forward thinking, highly motivated finance professionals.
In line with our commitment to excellence, the Assistant Finance Business Partner position has been designed as a development role. It is therefore ideal for either a first step into financial management; or as a steppingstone towards a more senior position. Your initial banding and subsequent progression would be linked to experience, qualifications and behaviours, in line with the Trust’s competency framework. We are committed to your success, and you would be joining a creative, challenging and supportive team environment.
We are looking for someone who shares the Trusts values and works well with a wide range of people to enable services to deliver high quality care for our service users. Working within NHS finance offers an attractive career, with great opportunities for training and progression. It also provides an excellent pension scheme, a good level of paid holidays and flexible working options. The trust is committed to inclusive working practices and offers hybrid home working and options for contracts with reduced hours.
Main duties of the job
The full details of the role are contained within the person spec and Job description, attached. We are keen to attract either part or fully qualified accountants and also welcome applicants from outside the NHS. For all candidates, we are most interested in your attitude, aptitude and proven ability to learn.
If successful, you would provide business partnering support to our service managers and clinical leads. The role includes month end reporting, variance analysis and supporting Budget Manager’s to interpret and understand their financial position. Candidates entering at band 4 level would receive full training and an opportunity to study, in line with the current policy.
As a senior 5 candidate, the Assistant Finance Business Partner role will uniquely allow you to experience all aspects of the department. We are a small team, so you will have opportunities to gain experience in costing, income, planning, financial accounts and links to the wider health system. This is, therefore, an ideal position for someone aspiring towards a more senior strategic finance position.
Working for our organisation
We are passionate about providing the very best care to the people we support, and we're looking for amazing people who share this passion to join us.
What is it that makes our Trust such a special place to work? Well, it's all about the people. Our staff, service users, carers and families all come from such diverse backgrounds and all have expertise and stories to share.
It’s important that you feel supported in your role, that the people who you work with are as passionate as you are and that your health and wellbeing is taken care of
If you're interested in developing your career, you'll have access to a range of training and education opportunities, including apprenticeships, work experience and placements, as well as the chance to get involved in research.
We are all very proud of the difference we make to people's lives each and every day and if that's something that you'd like to be part of we'd love to have you with us.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Reporting to the Finance Business Partner the main responsibilities of the role are:-
Supporting Directorates
Responsible for producing high-quality, and relevant, Cost Centre Reports to a strict monthly timetable within policies and procedures agreed with the Finance Business Partner.
Ensure that all input documents are complete and accurate in accordance with agreed procedures and processes and Audit requirements (this will involve analysing confidential streams of data e.g. payroll, purchase ledger, sales ledger etc. and ensuring they are input into the system to meet the monthly and year end timetables).
Work closely with budget managers to ensure the understanding of performance variances. Support managers and clinical staff in developing or revising plans in support of out-turn forecasts for Directorates. Using data to support a longer-term view of services and take time to understand existing services.
Take a proactive role in liaising with Budget Managers and finance colleagues to ensure that the information contained in budget reports and supporting schedules is accurate and robust. This will include variance analysis, staff in post lists, income and expenditure analysis. Effort should be made to use language that is helpful and meaningful to budget holders, in service of patients and service users.
Liaise with budget managers on payroll matters by providing accurate staffing costs when required, amending Authorised Funded Establishments as agreed with the Finance Business Partner and ensure that staff in post lists are updated and correctly coded. Translate WTE on reports into shift patterns, numbers on a unit etc, so that the data becomes meaningful to the service.
Respond to ad-hoc requests from Budget Managers for financial analysis of all aspects of the service. This includes staff costing analysis to assist skill mix reviews and recruitment planning.
Be proactive in helping the Finance Business Partner support various improvement schemes within directorates. The aim being to continually improve and challenge existing ways of working to provide an efficient and effective clinical service.
Assist the Finance Business Partner in the production of financial information in support of Business Cases developed by Directorates. This will include producing, in liaison with Directorate Managers, historic service costs for comparison with future configuration. Any new developments should be in line with both National (The NHS Long Term Plan) and local ICS priorities.
Take a proactive role in the training, education and improved financial awareness of Budget Managers. This will include highlighting the financial implications of individual actions on budgetary control and ensuring that advice offered complies with the Trust’s Standing Financial Instructions and Schemes of Delegation. This should include an awareness of the tools available from Future focused finance (FFF.)
Planning
Participate in the Directorate Financial Planning process by ensuring that budgets and expenditure for each Cost Centre are accurate and reflect any implications of part-year or non-recurrent in-year changes. Also ensure that opportunities for efficiency savings at Departmental level are identified and quantified. Consider Directorate plans within the wider local and National context.
Take an active part in the identification and analysis of Directorate Cost Pressures and Service Developments in line with Trust Business Planning processes.
Other Financial Responsibilities
Be proactive in the development, appraisal and implementation of Financial Management processes/systems, both computerised and manual; ensuring that best practice is communicated, via senior accountants, to staff working in the Financial Management department by training, procedure notes and meetings. Use the Future Focused Finance resource to keep up to date with best practice.
Where appropriate, support the Finance Business Partners in the annual production of Reference Costs for the patient related services provided by the Directorates.
Participate and contribute to the Finance Department working groups dealing with development, implementation and review of departmental policies. This may include service benchmarking and support with redesign of departments and services.
Any other duties commensurate with the grade of the post.
Line Management
To play a proactive role in the recruitment of staff and to train, motivate, develop and manage those staff effectively, within Finance Directorate policies and procedures, ensuring that all staff have job descriptions, personal development plans and are subject to an agreed appraisal mechanism. This includes the assessment of training needs and ensuring that those needs are met.
To be aware of available resources, from the HFMA and FFF in support of staff recruitment and development. Particularly in respect to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and developing a more service focused team approach.
Any other duties commensurate with the grade of the post.
Training & Development
To be responsible for keeping the skills and knowledge required for the post up to date, which will ensure that all advice given and decisions made are based on the best and most recent information available.
To provide education and training to non-finance managers/staff within the Directorates and to convey financial concepts clearly and persuasively.
To participate in the development of Finance policies and procedures and be proactive in suggesting improvements to existing policies.
To actively contribute to the successful delivery of the Finance and Procurement development plan.
Attend & participate in Finance and Directorate meetings contributing information and actively discussing Finance issues where appropriate.
Progression
In order to progress from a Band 4 to a Band 5 the post holder will be required to:
Demonstrate progress in their accountancy studies.
Submit a portfolio of evidence in line with individual development plans. These will be developed in collaboration with the Finance Business Partner and focus on the developmental aspects of the position as linked to Agenda for Change competencies. Areas of experience are expected to cover Due to the expected variety of development needs, individual programmes are expected to be required.
Person specification
Knowledge & Skills
* Ability to meet deadlines through effective organizational and planning skills.
* Ability to undertake highly complex and involved analysis producing results that may have material consequences for the organization.
* Understanding and interpretation skills necessary to perform technical advisory role
* Good presentation and interpersonal skills
* Commitment to openness, honesty, inclusiveness & personal integrity in dealing with others.
Training & Qualifications
* Experience and or knowledge of financial procedures and techniques equivalent to AAT
* Technician Level or actively studying towards a professional accountancy qualification.
* Commitment to commence study of a CCAB finance qualification.
Experience
* Recent, relevant work experience within a management accounting environment in a large and complex organisation.
* Experience of using computerised accounting software.
* Previous NHS finance experience.
* A sound knowledge of costing principles.
Knowledge & Skills
* Highly computer literate. Knowledge of Microsoft Office applications (especially Excel)
* Good communication and verbal reasoning skills.
* Understanding the need to maintain confidentiality at all times
* Ability to work both under own initiative and as part of at team
* Ability to manage competing and changing workloads.
* Proactive, creative and flexible approach, able to work on own initiative and take responsibility for delegated areas of responsibility.
* Commitment to work through the competency framework of skills and behaviours, as directed by the Finance Business Partner.
* Knowledge of key financial performance targets for the NHS and the NHS funding regime
Other
* Fit our organisational values.
* Flexibility in relation to working hours, particularly to achieve deadlines, e.g. in relation to production of routine financial reporting.
We aim to be an organisation that is diverse and inclusive and to meet this aim we welcome applications from people with a wide range of life experience and whose diversity echoes the diversity of Sheffield, that of the people who use our services, and that of the people who may need to use our services but face barriers to access. Please think about your personal values and how these align with our values when you are applying. Find out more about our organisation through our website .
We are a Disability Confident employer level 2 and hope to achieve level 3 this year. We offer a guaranteed interview to disabled applicants who meet all of the essential criteria for a role. When you apply you will have the opportunity to let us know if you require adjustments to be made, please contact us if you are not sure or if you require adjustments to the application process itself.
Our six staff network groups welcome new members, these are:
* The Ethnically Diverse Staff Network Group
* The Disability Staff Network Group
* The Lived Experience Staff Network Group
* The Rainbow Staff Network Group
* The Staff Carers Staff Network Group
* The Women’s Staff Network Group
We know how important flexible working can be to applicants and therefore we encourage you to discuss any working arrangements as part of this process. We will always aim to accommodate requests, wherever possible.
The Trust is committed to safeguarding adults and children and as part of our safe recruitment practice the successful applicant(s) will be subject to a check with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) if it is deemed appropriate for the role. The cost of the DBS check (currently up to £48.23) must be met by the successful applicant(s).
When applying for this post you will redirected to complete your application in our preferred applicant management system, Trac. If you are successfully offered a role, information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.In addition, in submitting an application, you authorise our Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the ESR IAT process should you be appointed.
Please note, all communication regarding your application will be made via email, please ensure you check your junk/spam folders as emails are sometimes filtered there.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) when writing job applications
If you choose to use AI or other tools to assist in writing your application, it's essential to personalise this information, particularly your supporting statement.
While AI can help streamline the writing process, these tools cannot fully grasp the context or requirements of the job you’re applying for, nor can they accurately reflect your skills, knowledge, and experience. It is crucial that you personalise your supporting statement by articulating these in your unique voice.
Relying solely on AI to write your application or supporting statement is not advocated by SHSC and could negatively impact your chances of success in the application process.
•usually lack relevance and fail to address the key criteria outlined in the job description and person specification.
•may come across as generic and fail to distinguish you from other applicants.
•may be ambiguous or open to misinterpretation. Without careful review and editing, the supporting statement could convey messages that are unclear or misconstrued by hiring managers.
•may include qualifications, skills, knowledge or experience that you do not possess, potentially leading to misrepresentation.
Supporting Statement
The supporting statement is an opportunity for you to showcase how your qualifications, knowledge, skill and experiences align with the requirements and criteria outlined in the job description and person.
Recruiting managers score applications based on the criteria listed in the person specification. Managers will be looking for evidence of how you meet these criteria. To increase your chances of securing an interview, provide examples of how you have applied your skills and knowledge in real-life situations. Share work-related successes and challenges you’ve navigated that align with the criteria. These could be from various aspects of your life, including work, education, and personal experiences.
Consider structuring your statement with clear headings or bullet points. This approach will help both you and the recruiting manager navigate through your application more effectively.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
This post will require a submission for Disclosure to be made to check for any unspent criminal convictions.
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