GOVTALENT.UK

HEO Finance Team Leader

This opening expired 4 months ago.

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Location(s):
Birmingham, Hemel Hempstead, Wolverhampton
Salary:
£32,178
Job grade:
Higher Executive Officer
Business area:
Accounting and Finance
Contract type:
Permanent
Working pattern:
Full-time, Part-time

About the job

Job summary

The roles are based in the Finance Shared Services Division (FSSD) which provides transactional finance services to DLUHC, the Planning Inspectorate (PINS), the Valuation Tribunal Service (VTS) and the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) with a customer base of 3500 users. You will be working in a friendly team with a focus on development and process improvement. We are constantly seeking to improve how we work and welcome new ideas to shape this. The team leaders work as part of the finance operations team and oversee small teams responsible for finance transactional services. 

Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable  Team Leader 

Oversight and management of delivery in this area including:

  • Creating payment files and ensuring that the department’s grants and payments are made daily
  • Sales Invoice creation and recovery of debt. 
  • Uploading of bank statement, bank reconciliations and overarching responsibility for bank account
  • Compiling and submitting the cash forecasting return to HMT
  • Playing a lead role in the move to a new Government Banking contract in 2025.

You will lead a team of 2 EOs and 2 AOs, ensuring that the team works together to deliver their work and all of their daily targets against Service Level Agreements and Key Performance indicators; you will achieve this by running twice daily Lean meetings to allocate and monitor delivery of the work load

 

General Ledger and Master Data Team Leader 

Oversight and management of delivery in this team including:

  • Month and year end General Ledger and Budgeting processes on SAP.
  • The creation and maintenance of Cost centres, Internal orders, General ledger codes and vendor and customer data on SAP.
  • Submission of quarterly VAT returns to HMRC
  • Monthly balance sheet reconciliations
  • Pay Overs to HMT.

You will lead a team of 2 EOs and 2 AOs, ensuring that the team works together to deliver their work and all of their targets against Service Level Agreements and Key Performance indicators; you will achieve this by running twice daily Lean meetings to allocate and monitor delivery of the work load

There is a requirement to attend the Hemel Hempstead office on a Wednesday as this is where the team is based and everyone comes in for the Wednesday team day. Additional office attendance can be in your allocated site.

Job description

The main duties will consist of, but not be limited to:

  • Being an effective and engaged team leader, responsible for setting direction, delivering against strategic objectives.
  • Delivering and maintaining positive relationships with customers and stakeholders, ensuring services and expectations are managed against clearly defined deliverables and KPI’s.
  • Leading, motivating and developing a team of four to deliver an effective service.
  • Ensure effective controls are in place to maintain accuracy of data and to provide insight including risk management and mitigation actions.
  • Collecting performance information, providing volumes and trends as part of the divisional monthly Management Data Pack process.
  • Continually review and adapt processes in line with planned implementation of SAP4Hana in April 2025 Plan and prepare team for proposed move to the Government Shared Services Unity platform (based in HMRC) in 2026/27

Person specification

You will have a strong finance background, good IT and organisation skills and the flexibility to turn your hand to different tasks as the situation demands. You will engage with a broad range of partners and form relationships with colleagues across the wider finance team. You will have demonstrable capability to work effectively with remote colleagues and management, managing your deadlines and priorities.


Essential Skills:

  • Significant finance experience
  • Experience of using a Finance ERP system, e,g SAP, Oracle, MS
  • Experience of leading and developing a team 
  •  Excellent communication skills 
  •  Positively responds to change and able to lead it 
  •  Ability to meet targets and make effective decisions, being highly organised with good attention to detail. 
  •  A sound working knowledge of Microsoft office including Outlook, Teams, Excel and Power Point.

Desirable Finance qualifications at AAT Level or equivalent Previous experience of using SAP software

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,178, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £8,688 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

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

We are for everyone 

At DLUHC we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation. 

 

Please contact the vacancy manager if you have any questions about the role.   

As part of our pre-employment checking process we will be using your CV to confirm your job history. Please note that by providing us with your CV you are consenting to us using the information enclosed as part of the checking process. 

We are for everyone 

DLUHC want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.  

Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).  

At application stage you will be asked to upload a CV document. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage. 

 

Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.  

 

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors. 

 

When writing your application, remember: 

  • The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.  
  • Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.  
  • If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!) 

 

 

At sift, we will be assessing  

Behaviour 1 - Making Effective Decisions

Behaviour 2 - Leadership

Behaviour 3  - Managing A Quality Service

Experience (lead Sift) - Thinking about your career to date, what skills, knowledge and experience do you have which make you the best candidate for this role?

There is a 250 word limit per question. 

 

In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview. 

 

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements:    

Behaviour – Making Effective Decisions, Leadership, Managing A Quality Service

Experience 

Interviews for this campaign will be held face to face in either Birmingham or Hemel Hempstead.  During the application stage you will be asked to select your preferred office location for the interview to be conducted.

In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profile Elements: 

Behaviours: Making Effective Decisions, Leadership, Managing A Quality Service

Experience:  Yes

We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs 

Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign. 

 

HEO salary 

  • The salary for this role is £35,400 (Hemel Hempstead) or £32,178 (National). 
  • For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If you apply for a role that requires a transfer of location, for example if you are transferring from London to a National location, your salary will be adjusted in accordance with our policy on transfer between HQ pay ranges. 

 
Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation’s terms and conditions.   

 

BENEFITS: 

Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018: 
Any move to DLUHC from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk 

For further information about the benefits available to DLUHC employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack. 

 

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION: 

  • Birmingham
  • Wolverhampton 
  • Hemel Hempstead

 

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role. 

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES: 

Sifting is envisaged to take place 3/5/2024 with interview dates to be confirmed. Interviews will be held face to face in either Birmingham or Hemel Hempstead.

 

Reserve List 

 
In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details in a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list. 

SC (Security Check) 

Important note 

 
Successful candidates for roles based in our 2 Marsham Street building must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is Security Check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete. 

Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the Security Check – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 5 years. Please refer to the DLUHC Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Security Check (SC).  

Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by DLUHC. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database. 

 

Candidate Pack Information 

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. 

Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the DLUHC candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules 

 

Internal Fraud Database 

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.  

For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register 



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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). 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.

Added: 5 months ago