Head of Programme Finance

 

Main characteristics

Location

West Midlands (County)

Company

Department for Transport

Salary

£64106 - £64108/annum

Employment type

Permanent

Category

Military / Emergency / Government

Job summary

An outstanding opportunity in a high profile role

* Working on the Government's largest infrastructure programme

About Our Client

The Department for Transport - High Speed Rail Group (HSRG) sponsors the development and delivery of High Speed 2 (HS2) - the country's largest infrastructure project, which will increase capacity across the UK's crowded railway system, improve connectivity between the UK's major cities and help support the wider Government objectives on decarbonisation and Levelling-up.

Job Description

The role sits in the Funding, Strategy & Sponsorship Division which leads on all cross-phase funding and financing areas within the Department and Group that relate to HS2. The team is predominantly based in London, with members of the wider Division based in Leeds and Birmingham. HS2 Ltd also being located in Birmingham.

You will be a senior finance professional and qualified Accountant responsible for the monitoring of expenditure against budgets - both in-year and over defined fiscal event periods, such as the existing spending review period (2023/34 - 2024/25). The programme is easily the Government's biggest, where we are forecasting spend close to £15bn over the next two financial years alone.

You will work collaboratively with the rest of the Group, DfT Finance Business Partners and HS2 Ltd and you will be adept at interpreting complex financial information and presenting conclusions to senior audiences, such is the scale of expenditure and high profile political interest in the programme.

The role reports directly to the Deputy Director for Funding, Strategy & Sponsorship and you will work very closely with the Head of Funding and HSRG senior leadership team, which comprises four Directors and our Director General. You will also liaise very closely with senior leadership across the Department's Central and Strategic Finance functions given the Department's wider priority to ensure affordability and to provide regular oversight of spend to the Executive Committee, Ministers and HM Treasury.

This interesting and demanding role is rewarding and offers a fantastic opportunity to have a direct influence to shape how the Department spends money on a major Government programme.

Roles and Responsibilities

Your key duties and responsibilities will include:

* Financial insight - Working with HS2 Ltd to ensure that cost performance and forecasting at the major contractor level is fully understood in relation to schedule, scope and cost drivers. Your work will also involve understanding emerging trends and the financial impacts of project interventions and mitigations. This will require robust and constructive challenge of HS2 Ltd, ensuring transparency of information and proactively dealing with emerging trends, ultimately helping the programme to deliver on its spend commitments and live within its Spending Limits agreed with Government.

* Constructive challenge of HS2 Ltd budget forecasts and profiling - You will form close working relationships with HS2 Ltd and DfT Central Finance in order to understand future HS2 Ltd funding requirements. You will provide robust scrutiny of HS2 Ltd's management information on earned value and isolation of inflationary impacts. Your will also scrutinise future detailed projections from HS2 Ltd to inform future bids for funding from HMT.

* Preparing for the next Spending Review - You will work closely with the rest of the Funding team on ensuring that we have the right processes and evidence in place to commence negotiations with HS2 Ltd and HM Treasury ahead of financial year 2025/26.

* Presenting financial management information - Responsibility for providing timely, accurate and clearly communicated financial management information and analysis, making full use of existing reports from HS2 Ltd, other relevant data and analytics tools, to support recommendations to drive efficiency and effectiveness through value added insight and advice. This could be on future project decision points, including supporting advice to Ministers.

* Month and year-end accounting - Working closely with HS2 Ltd and other DfT Group finance teams, ensuring that detailed project/contractor level reporting provided at year-end accounting time frames is consistent with overall financial submissions.

* Project close-out strategy - Work closely with each Phase team within High Speed Rail Group, setting the strategy and implementing a process for ensuring all projects can reach financial close out effectively with all costs accurately incurred and recorded.

The Successful Applicant

We are looking for a highly driven individual with experience of strong leadership, who is a confident, articulate communicator and a trusted adviser, highly numerate with the ability to provide sound financial advice to protect value for money for taxpayers.

You will have outstanding interpersonal skills and experience of building effective and influential relationships with senior stakeholders, and a track record of demonstrating excellent financial management and providing added-value advice.

This role is suitable someone who is qualified under one of the main five Consultative Committees of Accounting Bodies [CCAB] i.e. ACCA; CIPFA; ICAEW; ICAI or ICAS, or CIMA.

To apply for this position, please apply with your CV and a Personal Statement (max 1000 words).

Within your Personal Statement (max 1000 words) please provide detailed evidence of the following:

* Your experience in managing the budgets of large capital infrastructure programmes involving multiple stakeholders and delivering to deadlines.

* Your experience handling standard project and programme metrics, including earned value analysis to understand cost, schedule and scope impacts.

* Your experience using financial data and an understanding of the business to develop robust financial reporting and control whilst generating insight into how to improve Value for Money and performance.

* Your experience as a leader, inspiring and motivating teams to be fully engaged in their work and dedicated to their role.

What's on Offer

The successful Head of Programme Finance will receive a salary of £64,108 plus benefits.

Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits. We offer generous annual leave, attractive pension options, flexible working, inclusive working environments and much more to support a healthy work/life balance.



Reasonable Adjustments

As a Disability Confident Leader employer, DfT is committed to ensuring that the recruitment process is fair, accessible and allows all candidates to perform at their best. If a person with a visible or non-visible disability is substantially disadvantaged, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes. We want to support you if you need an adjustment in the recruitment process, even if you do not feel you qualify for the Disability Confident Scheme.

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, diabetes, or schizophrenia.



Interviews under the Disability Confident Scheme



To be considered for an interview under this scheme you must have:

* a physical or mental impairment, or a long term health condition which has a substantial and long term (over 12 months) adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day to day activities

* demonstrated in your application and testing stages that you meet the minimum job criteria as set out in the advert or person specification for the post

A Great Place to Work for Veterans Initiative

We offer veterans who meet the minimum standard on each of the job's essential criteria the opportunity to go directly to the next stage of selection.



Interviews under the Redeployment Interview Scheme (RIS) - current Civil Servants only

We value our staff and want to make every effort to retain them if we can. Under this scheme, Civil Service employers can offer an interview to a fair and proportionate number of civil servants who are at risk of redundancy and who meet the minimum job requirements.

For example, you may be at risk if your work area has launched a voluntary or compulsory redundancy scheme that you're eligible for, or you are aware that your employer has begun consultation on how to reduce staff in your immediate team or work area.

To be considered for an interview, you must:

* have good reason to believe that you are likely to be made redundant in the near future

* have demonstrated in your application and testing stages that you meet the minimum job criteria detailed in the person specification

* be applying for a job at the same grade as, or lower than, your current job

If you need a reasonable adjustment so that you can complete your application; you feel that you meet the minimum job criteria and would like to apply under the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS); you are a veteran of the British armed forces with a minimum of one year's service; or you believe that you are eligible and wish to apply using the Redeployment Interview Scheme, please contact the recruiter for this campaign, Bradley Glen, before you submit your application.

Where specific UK qualifications are required we will take into account overseas equivalents. All third party applications will be forwarded to Michael Page.

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