Assistant Director - Financial Management (Grade M1)

Key Responsibilities

• Overall responsibility for (ownership of) the financial and budget ledgers and application of SFC’s scheme of delegated financial authority. 
• Management of the production of annual accounts, responsibility for format, accounting policies and securing approvals. 
• Pro-active management and review of annual budget (for programme funds and running costs) including formal in-year re-forecasts before release to senior management. 
• Critically review management reports prepared for senior management and Council Committees ensuring significant issues are highlighted. 
• Main contact for internal and external audit on all financial and budgeting matters. 
• Overall management of month-end activities, approval of bank transactions and approval of drawdown requests. 
• Review and checking of the application of internal controls, including exception reports and audit logs. 
• Strong understanding of the Budgeting and Reporting and Financial Accounting functions including the ability to cover in the absence of Senior Budgeting and Reporting Officer.
• Building an integrated team to manage the financial and management accounting and procurement functions, and ongoing management and development of that team and the SUN finance system.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• CCAB accounting qualification or qualified by experience with significant relevant experience covering both financial and management accounts. 
• High level analytical skills. 
• Proven leadership skills – to deal with change management and enable the teams to be developed and sustained creating a strong customer focussed team-working environment. 
• Strong written and oral communication skills including experience of explaining financial information to non-finance staff. 
• Flexibility, ability to co-ordinate a diverse range of priorities, and react positively to change. 
• Significant experience of finance and management accounting procedures and IT systems. 
• Excellent IT skills including Microsoft Word and Excel 

• Experience of SUN accounts and budget management packages  

Terms and Benefits

About
We are the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, more commonly known as the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).We are Scotland’s tertiary education and research authority and our purpose is to sustain a world-leading system of tertiary education, research and innovation that enables students to flourish, changes lives for the better, and supports social, economic and environmental wellbeing and prosperity.We do this by investing around £2 billion of public money to deliver:Tertiary learning and teaching.Skills and apprenticeships.Student support and participation.Research, innovation and knowledge exchange.Data collection and dissemination.National quality assurance and enhancement processes.Capital and digital infrastructure for the sector.Strategic change, responsive provision and research priorities.As a non-departmental public body established by the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005, we are directly accountable to Scottish Government Ministers and the Scottish Parliament. We work across many government portfolios and are sponsored by the Lifelong Learning Directorate.We hold colleges, universities and other funded bodies to account for their delivery of required outcomes. We are also the statistical authority for colleges, and work closely with the UK-wide Higher Education Statistical Authority (HESA), to provide data and statistics for government, decision-makers, and the wider public.We work in partnership with a wide range of partners and bodies, including those we fund, across all aspects of our remit.General information for applicants for SFC rolesYou must already be eligible to work in the UK to apply for these roles. SFC does not offer employment sponsorship for new employees.We are pleased to support applications from everyone regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, socio-economic background, gender, sexual orientation, sex, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief, as well as those who have skills in Scottish Gaelic or British Sign Language, who have the right skills for the job.  We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and actively encourage interviews through the scheme.  We may limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people if there are high volumes of applicationsFurther information about SFC is available on our website Scottish Funding Council home page (sfc.ac.uk).   Additional information about our recruitment process can be found at Recruitment Information and Tips | Scottish Funding Council Careers (sfc.ac.uk).