Divisional Accountant
£46,392 - £53,490
Permanent, 36 hours per week
Location: London
Ref: SC04793

About Southwark:

Southwark is a large, ambitious and progressive council with a ‘can do’ attitude and enviable reputation. As a Council, we are successful, passionate and forward-thinking. We are committed to our ‘Fairer Futures for All’ promise which ensures that our residents and businesses are central to everything we do. If you want to make a difference at a local level, apply to Southwark Council today.

The Role:

The council are currently recruiting to 4 Divisional Accountant positions:

• Divisional Accountant – Adult Social Care and Commissioning

The post holder will provide support for Adult Social Care which includes Older People, Physical Disabilities and Commissioning services. The Adult Services directorate has a budget circa of £88m.

The post holder will have responsibility for the following areas:

• Budget monitoring and reporting

• Medium Term Financial Plan (including ensuring proposals and business cases are robust)

• Year-end closure of accounts, including liaison with auditors

• Finance lead for key returns such as ASC-FR

• Divisional Accountant – Children and Families

You will provide management accountancy support for the Children and Families Division (C&F). You will be reporting to the Senior Finance Manager Children and Families (SFM C&F), and your main responsibilities will include:

• Establishing and maintaining an excellent relationship with budget holders in order to stay informed about all finance related developments in their service areas.

• Using this knowledge to produce an accurate monthly forecast for these areas.

• Creating high quality monthly finance reports to keep management informed about the financial situation within their respective areas.

• Year-end closure of accounts for your responsibility area, mainly involving the raising of accrual journals; liaising with auditors after year end.

• Other areas include some capital reporting, debt reporting, writing financial comments during procurement exercises, and many other smaller ad hoc projects and tasks.

Divisional Accountant – Education

The post holder will provide accountancy support for Education services. You will be reporting to the Senior Finance Manager for Education and Schools.

The post holder will have responsibility for the following areas:

• Budget monitoring and reporting

• Medium Term Financial Plan (including ensuring proposals and business cases are robust)

• Year-end closure of accounts, including liaison with auditors

• Finance lead for key statistical and grant returns

• Divisional Accountant – Pensions and Investment

The post holder will lead on all aspects of pension fund accounting and provide support in the oversight of the pension fund’s £2.1bn investment portfolio in line with Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) Regulations.

The post holder will have responsibility for the following areas:

• Lead on all aspects of pension fund accounting, including production of the statement of accounts.

• Finance lead for pension fund returns such as ONS – Financial Survey of Pension Schemes.

• Provide support in leading on the day to day management of pension fund investments and management of pension fund contracts.

• Provide support on the implementation of changes to the investment strategy.

Additional salary details

The Council’s Professional Finance Services (PFS) division sits within the Finance & Governance Department. PFS provides professional accounting and financial advisory and support services to the organisation. The division is made up of around 50 members of staff arranged in a ‘hub and spoke’ model with three departmental finance teams and a central ‘corporate finance’ team.

Benefits and More Information:

https://jobs.southwark.gov.uk/why-us/

https://jobs.theguardian.com/minisites/southwark-council/life-at-southwark-benefits-and-more/

Recruitment timetable

Closing date: 11.59pm on 31st of May 2022.

Interview and Assessment: w/c 6th of June 2022.

We are an organisation who is passionate about our people and understands that richness of diversity is a requirement to provide the best possible services to our communities. This is demonstrated through our council-wide ambitious commitment to tackle racial inequality in our communities and workforce through our Southwark Stands Together initiative. We particularly welcome applications from members of the black, Asian and ethnic minority communities to increase representation at senior management level in the Council.