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Role: Finance Officer

Department: Corporate Finance

Location: Carbrook – Force HQ, Sheffield

Salary: £29,874 - £33,915

Hours: 37hrs

Contract Type: Permanent

Role Purpose:

Directly support the Accountants (and indirectly the Finance Business Partners) in the provision of clear, accurate and timely financial information in accordance with corporate timetables. Act as a single point of contact for routine financial matters to Districts/Departments.

Act in accordance with Force Financial Regulations, Contract Standing Orders and Force Financial Instructions, procedures, and guidelines at all times.

Key Responsibilities:

Budget Setting

• Profile all revenue, capital and grant budgets in accordance with the budget-setting timetable, with support and direction from the Accountant where required.
• Upload the annual budget and reconcile to Oracle General Ledger.
• Prepare routine budget working papers for the budget setting process to feed into the Medium-Term Resource Strategy.
• Calculate all in year virements and update the Savings Plan where relevant. Reconcile the recurrent and non-current virements to Oracle General Ledger and BI Budget Model on a monthly basis.

Budget Monitoring

• Identify, query and explain all revenue and grant, non-pay, current month and year-to-date variances as directed by the Management Accountant. In liaison with spending departments. Complete a projected outturn and year to date commentary for all expenditure, including an explanation of all key variances.
• Calculate all accruals, prepayments, collaboration adjustments and external recharges and ensure they are input to the ledger on a monthly and year-end basis, automated through either iProcurement or manual journal. Ensure that all material invalid coding’s are corrected including pay journals.
• Gather, analyse, and reconcile pay data to pay budgets, identify current month and year-to-date variances. Work with HR in relation to post and strength changes. Provide explanations and data for interpretation and inclusion in the financial commentary.
• Be responsible for ensuring that all internal recharges and trading accounts are administered in an accurate, timely and effective manner.
• Complete other month end transactions and reports including overtime reports, open purchase order report, monthly pay reconciliation, recharges to other Forces, time off, top earners etc.
• On a monthly basis, ensure that the Oracle trial balance reconciles to the revenue monitoring reports, taking corrective action as appropriate.

Capital Monitoring

• Run the month-end capital reports and assist the Accountant in monitoring capital variances by investigating all current month and year-to-date variances and liaising with Project Managers as appropriate.
• Complete a projected outturn and financial commentary for the smaller capital projects.

Year-End

• Carry out year-end duties in accordance with the year-end timetable, ensuring that District/Departmental staff are aware of their obligations.
• Complete all working papers relevant to role and assist with reviewing other schedules to ensure they are maintained in accordance with accounting standards and audit requirements.

Balance Sheet Management

• Carry out all monthly/quarterly/annual balance sheet reconciliations to ensure that assets, income, and expenditure are all treated correctly within the accounts structure.

Assets

• Reconcile the acquisitions and disposals of all force assets, including properties, vehicles, all vehicle fleet stocks and items of equipment at regular intervals throughout the financial year.
• On an annual basis, liaise with districts/departments to verify all assets held by the force and update all asset transactions on the asset management system.

Fees & Charges

• Control and coordinate all allocated specialist functions which could include Mutual Aid, Seconded Officers, and Regional Working, ensuring that costs are accurately coded, recorded and monitored, charges are calculated accurately, and income is collected promptly.

Costing

• Analyse and update both the staff costings, special costings, and national framework agreement costings, gathering information from various sources to arrive at the costs. Use guidance provided by ACPO where appropriate.
• Calculate and present costings to support Districts/Departments including overtime, operations, events, and basic financial implications in reports.

External Funding

• Assist project managers in the preparation of bids for external funding and prepare claims for reimbursement and submission to funding bodies, ensuring that a clear audit trail of all external funding records is maintained. Liaise with external bodies in respect of grant audits and any other financial matters. Complete grant projections as part of the monthly process.

External Returns

• Assist with the completion of external government returns including Police Objective Analysis, Whole of Government Accounts, DCLG Returns, CIPFA Benchmarking, Police Pension returns and any other returns becoming due. Complete journals, analyse income and expenditure and calculate costs. This also includes Freedom of Information requests.
• Provide VAT advice and guidance to support the department and the Force. Liaise with the Force VAT advisors as appropriate. Complete the VAT return with support from the Accountant.

System Control

• Complete month end tasks including cancelling / closing orders, creating code combinations, run (GRNI) Unvoiced Receipts Report and run Receipt Accruals – Period End Process. This also includes working with BI and using reports where appropriate.
• Support the testing of IT systems (UAT), subject to upgrade/implementation.

Continuous Improvement

• Take personal responsibility for continuous improvement within own work area and support the Accountants in reviewing, writing and maintaining procedures and support team continuous improvement projects.

Ad Hoc

• Deal with ad hoc requests for financial data which will include investigation, analysis and costing exercises and Freedom of Information requests. Provide financial advice and information as appropriate.
• Maintain the Corporate Finance intranet page with direction from the Accountant.
• Assist with the completion of internal audit reviews and provide working papers where appropriate.

This is a generic role profile that encompasses all anticipated roles and responsibilities for this post. Other duties commensurate with the grade of the post.

Skills and experience:

For further information relating to the role and tasks of this position, please refer to the attached role profile.

Benefits:

We offer generous entitlements and supportive policies to enable a better work-life balance, some of which are listed below:

• Generous annual leave allowance
• Flexible and hybrid working
• Generous ‘family’ leave
• Voluntary CPD Events for all staff to allow continuous development
• Mentoring & Coaching Scheme
• Access to a range of occupational health facilities
• Generous pension scheme
• Employee assistance service (accessible 24/7)
• Additional benefits for Westfield Health members
• Cycle to work scheme
• Sports and Social Club

Eligibility:

Applicants must meet the minimum requirement checkable history criteria, which must be taken into account for individuals applying to work with South Yorkshire Police in any capacity. A minimum checkable history of 5 years is required for this role and successfully undergoing recruitment vetting procedure is a pre-requisite of employment with South Yorkshire Police.

Appearance & Standards:

SYP is committed to striking a proportionate balance between self-expression and the need to maintain role sensitive professional standards in dress and appearance. Officers, staff, and volunteers of South Yorkshire Police are permitted to have tattoos visible whilst on duty provided the tattoo is not considered to be unacceptable or otherwise inappropriate. Tattoos will be reviewed as part of the recruitment and selection process.

South Yorkshire Police’s Key Values:

Please find attached information sheet on South Yorkshire Police’s Key Values. The force has a particular focus on three areas, Fairness, Integrity and Trust. Under each of these three headings there are key behaviours we expect all employees to adhere to.

Smarter ways of Working:

South Yorkshire Police is committed to developing working practices which assist staff to balance their personal and professional lives, whilst meeting the needs of the organisation. This in turn enables SYP to provide an outstanding service to the community.

There are 3 different categories as part of this which are: Fixed, Field and Hybrid.

This role has been evaluated as a Hybrid role.

Fixed: This is a traditional arrangement, applicable when the work is mostly required to be undertaken at a fixed single place of work (on police premises) for most of the time. The work can only or is more effectively delivered from a police premises or other agreed organisational/partner premises.

Field: This applies to roles that do have a base, however, due to the nature of their duties is required to travel to other locations. Due to the nature of these roles, they cannot accommodate flexible working from home on a permanent basis.

Hybrid: Applicable when the work can be undertaken at any location, whether that be a SYP building or from home.

Closing Date:

Friday 22 September 2023 at 23:55

Closing dates are not normally extended, other than in exceptional circumstances and agreement is made between the Talent Acquisition Manager and the Line Manager for the role.

Contact point for applicants:

For further information about the role, please contact Brenda Barber on 0114 252 3518. Please do not contact this number for an application form.

Diversity & Inclusion:

Expressions of interest are particularly welcome from female and ethnic minority candidates.

It’s really important to us that the department represents the community we serve, in order for us to provide the best service, utilising a range of backgrounds, experience and skills. We support and value all officers and staff and the unique experiences they bring to the role. We strongly encourage and welcome expressions of interest from these valuable underrepresented groups.

If you are from an underrepresented group and want to find out more about the support we can offer, please contact our dedicated team on [email protected]

In addition, we will look to support anyone who requires Part Time/Job share working hours.

Note to candidates:

Please note that, should you be successful at the interview stage, the relevant internal or external pre-employment checks are required. These include vetting clearance or review, prior to being appointed to the new role and start date being agreed.