32253 - Commercial & Corporate Finance Manager
We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice. To find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity
Overview
A unique opportunity for ambitious, self-starters to work at the heart of Ministry of Justice (MoJ). We are a diverse team consisting of colleagues with private sector and public-sector experience.
This role supports our commercial, income and corporate finance strategy. Highly suitable for individuals who enjoy stakeholder engagement and resolving complex issues cutting across a broad range of topics. We welcome applications from high caliber individuals who would like to be involved in developing our services.
About the Ministry of Justice
MoJ is one of the largest government Departments, employing around 70,000 people, with a budget of approximately £9 billion. Each year, millions of people use our services across the UK - including at 500 courts and tribunals, and 133 prisons in England and Wales.
We work to protect the public and reduce reoffending, and to provide a more effective, transparent and responsive criminal justice system for victims and the public. Further information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice
Job Title
Commercial & Corporate Finance Manager
Team / Directorate / Group
Commercial Finance & Income / Financial Strategy Planning and Performance Directorate / Chief Finance Officer’s Group.
Reports To:
Team Lead, Commercial Finance & Income.
Location & Terms of appointment
This is a permanent post. The successful candidate can be based anywhere in the country but, if not based in London, would be expected to travel to London as required.
Salary and Grade
This is a Grade 7 post. New entrants to the Civil Service will be expected to join within the civil service pay range. Existing Civil Servants will have their salary calculated in accordance with the Department’s pay on transfer / pay on promotion rules.
Background
A significant amount of MoJ’s budget is spent on external 3rd party suppliers. As part of our contractual arrangements the Department is sometimes faced with complex and material commercial and corporate finance challenges, issues and opportunities where prompt engagement is required.
MoJ earns almost a fifth (c. £2bn) of its gross annual budget through fees, fines and commercial income, with a significant focus on improving debt management as well as charges. In the current financial climate managing and protecting this income is vitally important.
Role Purpose
Your work will be varied, fast paced and interesting and will require you to apply your skills and experience across a range of complex financial, operational, legal, strategic and commercial areas. You will have a passion for being involved in large scale, complex decision making and applying your finance and accounting skills.
You will also have the personality to lead and influence people throughout MoJ, other Departments and external stakeholders to ensure key decisions, complex analysis and investigations align with the financial strategy for the Ministry and enhance the reputation of the Department. You will provide assurance and expert advice to support Senior Management decision making.
This role allows you to support the Department on sharing best practice and collaborating with colleagues from Other Government Departments, playing a crucial role in reducing the Department's exposure to financial risk.
Summary
This role in the Commercial Finance & Income team, within MoJ Group Finance plays a crucial role to help and support delivery of the team's objectives. These include, monitoring supplier financial health, providing technical, commercial and corporate finance expertise, identifying, managing and remediating commercial and corporate finance risks, providing expert financial advice to support major commercial and change programme decisions and supporting the Department to protect and maximise its income.
The team is diverse and has members with both private sector and public sector experience. You will be expected to work flexibly across the five main areas of the Commercial and Income Finance Team, with the following indicative distribution of your time:
- Risk Mitigation & Management (c.35%)
- Commercial and Income Strategy & Policies (c.35%)
- Supplier Financial and Market Monitoring (c.10%)
- Investment Case Reviews (c.10%)
- Income & Debt Support (c.10%)
The weightings and focus of work will depend on demand and risk priority i.e. you may need to work on any/all of these 5 areas. More details on the 5 areas and the respective role requirements are provided below. This list is not exhaustive.
Other: You will operate with a high level of autonomy and are expected to be comfortable making key decisions and presenting them, which may involve risk for the Department and substantial operational implications. You may also be expected to interact with senior stakeholders, including Ministers, and represent the team in place of Senior Civil Servants if required. You will also seek to share expertise with wider government Departments, where practicable.
You will be expected to coach and mentor junior members of the team and the wider profession to help build professional capability.
Main Activities / Responsibilities
Risk Mitigation & Management
- Provide niche expert corporate and commercial advice and insight on the financial implications of commercial contracts and major programme decisions.
- Lead/support complex reviews of existing contracts to ensure MoJ is gaining the maximum economic value and applying the financial elements of the contract fully.
- Lead/support on investigations and complex financial analysis.
- Lead/support on major contract issues with suppliers and support tender process on financial matters for major programmes.
- Provide specialist finance input into dispute and claims issues, including engagement with 3rd party suppliers.
Commercial and Income Strategy & Policy:
- Provide expert corporate and commercial finance advice on the financial implications of commercial strategies and decisions for major change programmes and existing commercial arrangements.
- Develop expertise in the end-to-end commercial cycle on commercial arrangement types, supplier legal structures, payment mechanism (including payment by results), financial contract clauses, financial rights and obligations, market players, macro-economic impacts (e.g. inflation and foreign exchange), financial protections and guarantee models and overarching bid/cost model requirements.
- Develop commercial finance policies/guidance and support their introduction and implementation in the relevant business areas. These will include learnings from key cross-government guidance documents.
Supplier Financial and Market Monitoring:
- Provide expert analysis of financial statements on the relative strength and ongoing financial viability of suppliers.
- Have an expert understanding of, and provide professional insight and advice in response to, market dynamics within key and applicable sectors.
- Lead/support on process improvement on supplier financial health monitoring, including developing the service offer across other government Departments. This includes working with other functional areas and Commercial in developing tools that allow easy analysis of outputs.
Investment /Business Case Reviews:
- Lead financial assurance reviews of business cases over £10m, providing advice to the approval bodies on the financial aspects, in order to influence major Programmes on commercial and finance decisions.
- Work collaboratively with other functional experts in forming your overarching assessment.
- Upskill MoJ Finance colleagues to help ensure that they are able to deliver good quality financial analysis within business cases and carry out 1st line assurance responsibilities on business cases.
- Lead on process improvement around governance of investment assurance, specifically around finance requirements, with the intention to work with Other Government Departments to leverage best practice and share ours.
- Develop to become the MoJ’s central expert in relation to Finance Case preparation and application of the HM Treasury Green Book (Investment appraisal and evaluation).
Income & Debt:
- Identify opportunities to improve existing processes for assessing cost-recovery and fee-setting to reduce the risk of over-recovery and minimize the impact of any necessary fee-reductions.
- Support on assessments of commercial income opportunities, including engaging with HMT, where appropriate.
- Lead on the production and delivery of the Department’s debt strategy, coordinating activities across the Department. Act as the liaison between Cabinet Office and the Department.
- Help support the creation of opportunities for sharing relevant best practice and knowledge across MoJ and cross-government, representing the Department on the cross-government debt management working group.
- Support the Department’s Subject Matter Expert on setting fees and charges, with respect to Managing Public Money and within the appropriate legal framework.
- Contributing to and reviewing submissions for senior officials.
Management of Resources:
Line Management of staff (or matrix management) may be required.
Person Specification:
Behaviours (Essential):
- Leadership.
- Communicating and Influencing.
- Managing a Quality Service.
Experience, Ability and Skills (Essential):
- Knowledge in commercial and/or corporate finance techniques and methodologies and how to apply them (note: Corporate finance activities include, but are not limited to, those that deal with financing, capital structuring and investment decisions. Commercial Finance are finance related activities within an end-to-end commercial cycle).
- Experience of commercial and/or corporate finance from either public and private sector.
- Meeting tight deadlines within unpredictable and demanding environments whilst delivering high quality products.
- Effective engagement with senior management e.g. Boards, Senior Executives and Ministers etc.
- Ability to provide insight and clear strategic understanding to ensure financial objectives are embedded into the decision-making process.
- Critical thinking & problem solving.
- Confidence to challenge and influence at all levels; Strong track record of building excellent stakeholder relationships.
- Works independently and flexibly with a focus on delivering outcomes, not just following process.
- Ability to analyse and interpret financial models and financial statements.
- Good Microsoft Office Excel and Word Skills.
- CCAB qualified accountant (i.e. ICAEW, ICAS, ICAI, ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA) or a recognized equivalent.
Experience, Ability and Skills (Desirable):
- Experience in undertaking assurance related projects and investigations.
- Experience of unit costing and pricing models.
- Possess sectoral and market knowledge.
Qualifications
accountancy qualification
Professional memberships
recognised accounting body or equivalent
Working Arrangements & Further Information
Some of MoJ’s terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform. The changes will apply to staff joining MoJ who are new to the Civil Service. Staff joining MoJ from other civil service employers will transfer onto the new MoJ terms if they are already on 'modernised' terms in their current post or onto 'unmodernised' MoJ terms if they are on 'unmodernised' terms at their current post. Details will be available if an offer is made.
Flexible working hours
The Ministry of Justice offers a flexible working system in many offices.
Benefits
The MoJ offers a range of benefits:
Annual Leave
Annual leave is 25 days on appointment and will increase to 30 days after five years’ service.
There is also a scheme to allow qualifying staff to buy or sell up to three days leave each year. Additional paid time off for public holidays and 1 privilege day. Leave for part-time and job share posts will be calculated on a pro-rata basis.
Pension
The Civil Service offers a choice of pension schemes, giving you the flexibility to choose the pension that suits you best.
Training
The Ministry of Justice is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities.
Support
- A range of ‘Family Friendly’ policies such as opportunities to work reduced hours or job share.
- Access to flexible benefits such as voluntary benefits,retail vouchers and discounts on a range of goods and services.
- For any moves across the Civil Service may have implications on your ability to carry on claiming childcare vouchers
- Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
- Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens.
Networks
The opportunity to join employee-run networks that have been established to provide advice and support and to enable the views of employees from minority groups to be expressed direct to senior management. There are currently networks for employees of minority ethnic origin, employees with disabilities, employees with caring responsibilities, women employees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. Should you feel that the recruitment process has breached the recruitment principles you are able to raise a formal complaint in the following order
1- To Shared Service Connected Ltd (0845 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com);
2- To Ministry of Justice Resourcing (resourcing-services@justice.gov.uk);
3- To the Civil Service Commission (details available here)
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity.
There is a guaranteed interview scheme (GIS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
Grading Structure Review
The Ministry of Justice is currently undergoing a review of posts which are currently graded at Band A to realign our grading structure with the majority of the wider Civil Service.
Posts advertised at Band A may be graded at either Grade 6 or Grade 7 once the review has taken place.
29/01/2021, 23:55 hours.
To apply for roles in MOJ you will need to confirm your employment history for at least 3 years prior to the date of application so that pre-employment checks (BPSS) can be undertaken. If you have spent significant time abroad (a total of 6 months in the past 3 years) you would be required to give a reasonable account of the reasons why.
For some roles you will be required to successfully complete National Security Vetting at Counter Terrorism (CTC), Security Clearance (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV) level as a condition of appointment. To meet CTC/SC/DV requirements you will normally need to have been resident in the UK for at least 3/5/10 years prior to the date of application (The level of checks that are required are stated in the advert).
If you do not meet the above requirements, you may still be considered if, for example:
- You've been serving overseas with HM Forces or in some other official capacity as a representative of HM Government
- You were studying abroad
- You were living overseas with parents
In such cases you will need to be able to provide referee cover for the period(s) of residence overseas. The duration of overseas residence and the country of abode will also be taken into account.
Success Profiles will enable a fairer and more inclusive method of recruitment by enabling us to assess the range of experiences, abilities, strengths, behaviours and technical/professional skills required for different roles. This flexible approach to recruitment focuses more on finding the right candidate for the specific role. To find out more about Success Profiles to support your application please click here for further guidance.
We have provided detail of the assessment stages and areas being assessed to help you prepare for completing your application form, and to advise of what will be assessed following this, if you successfully pass the application stage.
Application form stage assessments
Note: "Corporate Finance" are activities include and is not limited to activities that deal with financing, capital structuring and investment decisions. "Commercial Finance" are finance related activities within an end to end commercial cycle (Procurement, Contract Management, Dispute Resolution, Termination, Contract End). - 500 word limit
Interview stage assessments
A Great Place to Work for Veterans
The "Making the Civil Service a Great Place to work for veterans" initiative includes a guaranteed interview scheme to those who meet the minimum criteria to provide eligible former members of the Armed Forces with opportunities to secure rewarding jobs. Allowing veterans to continue to serve their country, and to bring highly skilled individuals with a broad range of experience into the Civil Service in an environment, which recognises and values your previous service in the Armed Forces.
For further details about the initiative and eligibility requirements visit : https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans
Redeployment Interview Scheme
Civil Service departments are expected to explore redeployment opportunities before making an individual redundant. The MoJ are committed, as part of the Redeployment Interview Scheme, to providing opportunities to those who are 'at risk of redundancy'.
MoJ are able to offer an interview to eligible candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. Candidate's will not be eligible for the Redeployment Interview Scheme if they are applying on promotion.
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
· UK nationals
· nationals of the Republic of Ireland
· nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
· nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families
· nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
· individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
· Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules
This Vacancy is closed to applications.