About the job

Job summary

Are you looking for the next step in your Finance Career? 

Do you have experience challenging and improving business plans? 

Have you previously working within a Property or Estates focused programme? 

If you’ve answered yes to these then our Estates and Locations Finance Business Partner role could be just for you!  

Corporate Finance fulfils a vital role at the heart of HMRC. We are responsible for ensuring that HMRC plans and manages its performance, makes good decisions, and is held to account on accurate financial and performance data. Our activity helps HMRC account excellently for everything it does.  
 
The Finance Business Partner branch is part of the Chief Finance Officer Corporate Support team, a team of over 80 people working across the UK to support HMRC’s CFO Group, with finance, planning, performance, business partnering, risk, and analytical services. HMRC’s CFO group employs over 2,000 staff working to provide the financial processes, estate services, assurance and control to enable HMRC to perform at its best. You’ll be part of a small team of business partners, and report to a Grade 7 Finance Business Partner. The core of the role is providing HMRC customers with a full finance service that meets both current and future needs.  

See what it’s like to work at HMRC: find out more about us or ask our colleagues a question. Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert.

Job description

Your core responsibility will be as a business partner and a key member of our Estates Directorate finance team. You will be the lead business partner for several major customers within Estates Workplace and Policies, covering and annual budget of over £100m.  

Being responsible for ensuring the directors and their teams understand their financial and workforce resources, providing advice, and challenge to ensure they are able to meet their wider objectives while ensuring value for money and good financial management across the directorate. We are also looking for you to be a role model and mentor anyone into a career within Finance 

As our Finance Business Partner, here are some things we are looking for you to do:

• Being an active member of business areas’ Senior Leadership Teams.  
• Provide constructive challenge to business plans and investment proposals. 
• Providing technical financial advice and support to the SLTs in the management of their delegated annual budgets.
• Monitor performance against plan and actively manage risks and opportunities against the latest financial forecasts. 
• Accurate financial reporting and provision of appropriate management information. 
  
• Understanding of and responsibility for a strong control environment and risk management within business areas.
• Monitoring efficiencies and change programmes, including investigating and challenging where efficiencies targets are not met.
• Building strong relationships with colleagues and stakeholders to facilitate the delivery of Finance Director and SLT objectives.
• Successful delivery of any ad hoc exercises assigned by the Finance Director. 

Person specification

You will be a key member of the Finance Business Partner team and your customer area’s Senior Leadership Team contributing to business decision-making, advising on a broad range of financial issues (such as budgeting and savings options) and related areas (workforce planning and risk). You will be responsible for the delivery of excellent customer service and driving performance up across your business area, as HMRC continues to undergo a period of transformational change. 
 
Essential Criteria:

• Minimum of 2 years Finance Function experience with a good understanding of financial practices and processes. 
• Full or part qualified in accountancy or willing to study for full qualification and membership of CIMA or CCAB. Must commence studying within 6months.   
• Demonstrable experience building personal credibility with senior partners. 
• A strong customer service ethos.
• Results orientated and committed to delivery of VfM. 
• Adaptable working style able to balance competing, sometimes urgent or ad hoc, priorities with each other. 
• Strong leadership and management skills with a drive to develop staff and make Corporate Support a great place to work .

Desirable Criteria:

• Part qualified CIMA or CCAB. 
• Experience of working with senior stakeholders, including challenging and acting as a critical friend. 
• Experience maintaining relationships during negotiations. 
• Ability to work with, understand, and summarise large data sets. 
• Confident in the use of Excel or comparable applications. 
• Experience of Office 365, including Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint, or comparable applications.

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Find more about HMRC benefits in 'Your little extras and big benefits handbook' for further information or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete an anonymised CV, a 500-word Personal Statement.

Your CV should cover your job history and will be scored against the experience required outlined in the advert.

Your personal statement is to demonstrate your suitability to the role and highlight any relevant achievements you have had so far in your career.

Desirable criteria will not be sifted on but may be used in the event of a tie-break.

Sift

At full sift your CV, and your Personal Statement, will be assessed, with the successful candidates being invited to interview.  

Interview

During the panel interview, your experience will be assessed, and you will be asked behaviour-based questions to explore in detail what you are capable of.

We reserve the right to raise the score required at any stage of the process in order to manage numbers.

Interviews will take place via video link. Interview dates to be confirmed.

After interview, a single merit list will be created and you will only be considered for posts in locations you have expressed a preference for. Appointments will be made in strict merit order in line with the set number of roles in each location.

A reserve list may be held for a period of up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles – if this applies to you, we’ll let you know via your Civil Service Jobs account.

Eligibility

To check that you are eligible to apply, review this eligibility information

Important information for existing HMRC contractual homeworkers:

This role may be suitable for existing HMRC employees who are contractual homeworkers. Occasional attendance to the office will be required where there is a business need, so please review the advertised office locations for this role when applying and only select locations from the ‘location preferences’ section that you are able to travel to.   

Reasonable Adjustments 

We want to make sure no one is put at a disadvantage during our recruitment process because of a disability, condition, or impairment. To assist you with this, we will reduce or remove any barriers where possible and provide additional support where appropriate. 

If you need a reasonable adjustment or a change to be made so that you can make your application, review this information on reasonable adjustments, and contact hmrcrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible.

Diversity and Inclusion

At HMRC we are committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues and creating an inclusive and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society we serve.

Diverse perspectives and experiences are critical to our success and we welcome applications from all people from all backgrounds with the experience and skills needed to perform this role. We’re committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues here at HMRC. We want everyone to feel valued and supported to achieve their potential at HMRC.

For more information on how we make this happen, review this information on our culture and values

Applications received from candidates with a criminal record are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.

We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible after considering operational and customer service needs. We can’t guarantee that we can meet all requests to work flexibly, as agreement will be subject to business ability to accommodate, and any request to work a more flexible arrangement should be made prior to your acceptance of the provisional offer.

Customer facing roles in HMRC require the ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English and/or Welsh where required. Where this is an essential requirement, this will be tested as part of the selection process. 

The Civil Service runs a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. 

Locations 

HMRC has a presence in every region of the UK. For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations.

Security Update

For more information on the level of security checks we will carry out, review this information on security checks

Further Information

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. The evidence you provide in your application must relate to your own experiences.

Any instances of plagiarism or other forms of cheating will be investigated and, if proven, the relevant application/s will be withdrawn from the process. 

Duplicate applications for the same vacancy will also be withdrawn.

Transferring into HMRC from Civil Service If you are currently working for an ‘Other Government Department’ (OGD) and would like to consider the impact on your pay when joining HMRC, please see the attached document "Combined T&C and OGD Pay English”, found at the bottom of this advert. Further information on staff transfers can be found on gov.uk

Problems during the application process 

If you experience accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section. 

If you think you’ve made a mistake on a short application form (e.g. you’ve ticked the incorrect eligibility box), please contact hmrcrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk at least two working days before the vacancy closes. After this, we won’t be able to reopen your application.   

Please use the subject line to insert appropriate wording e.g. Please re-open my application - 336467 & vacancy closing date 08/02/2024. Please note that we cannot amend or re-open your application if you have submitted your full application in the interests of fair and open recruitment.

For reasonable adjustments queries or requests, please see details within reasonable adjustments section above.

Due to operational needs, these posts are full-time; however applicants who need to work a more flexible arrangement are welcome to apply. We can’t guarantee that we can meet all requests to work flexibly, as agreement will be subject to business ability to accommodate, and any request to work a more flexible arrangement should be made prior to your acceptance of the provisional offer.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

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)
• 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)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.