This is a key management role within the Council taking responsibility for the following areas:

• Finance
• Revenues and Benefits
• Procurement

You’ll work closely with service managers across the organisation – supporting them in ensuring effective financial management, budget setting and financial controls. You’ll ensure that key decisions on service provision are well-informed and fiscally prudent, and that managers across the Council have access to expert financial advice when they need it.

You’ll play playing a key advisory role in our approach to post-pandemic recovery – ensuring we have an accurate assessment of its financial legacy, and that ongoing costs are carefully managed. You’ll also play an involved role in the implementation of our new Purchase to Pay scheme, designed to enhance our procurement processes, and support better value for money. You should be able to bring professional insight to our asset management strategy, encouraging a more strategic approach that secures maximum return from our assets (including East Lothian’s schools’ estates) – whether that is measured in terms of financial return or social impact.

We’re looking for a highly capable finance professional, who is a qualified accountant and has experience in a comparable setting, which could be another local authority or other public sector environment. You should offer an up-to-date perspective on the national context in which we operate and be keen to play a role outside of the Council as well as your vital work within.

We see Finance as an enabling function that collaborates effectively with different services to make things happen – identifying and managing risk, and ensuring resources are effectively aligned to strategic priorities. That demands a highly effective leader – someone who operates with enthusiasm and a clear appreciation of the bigger picture; someone who is open to new ideas and approaches and will question how things have always been done; and who can empower and develop staff, while modelling the East Lothian Council values.

Visit www.joineastlothian.co.uk to find out more or contact Steve Guest at Solace in Business for a confidential discussion on 020 7976 3311.

Closing date: 20th September.