Finance Director

Are you a CCAB qualified accountant looking for a flexible and varied role, where you can make a positive impact on the lives of young people?  

We are a growing, successful sixth form college with an annual budget in the region of £6.5 million and over 130 employees. This is an exciting opportunity for a Finance Director to join our Executive Team, who will share in our sense of purpose and our strong focus on students making outstanding progress. You will lead on all matters related to finance and help us maintain excellent financial performance, good internal control systems and achieving value for money.  You will also contribute to implementing our strategic objectives.    

If you have proven experience in financial management, and want to make a difference to the education and lives of young people, we would like to hear from you.   

Key responsibilities include:  

• Strategic financial planning  
• Managing day to day financial operations   
• Maintaining effective internal controls and leading on statutory reporting and annual audit  
• Ensuring operational efficiency and value for money  
• Contributing to estates, HR and MIS management  

The successful applicant will have:  

• Excellent skills in financial management  
• Vision, creativity and a positive attitude to lead and motivate staff  
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to communicate with staff and trustees, who may have little specialist knowledge of financial matters  
• High-level interpersonal skills and the ability to work as a member of a team  
• Hands on and flexible approach  
• A commitment to the College’s values, with a particular focus on ensuring the best possible resources are available for learning and teaching across the College

The Candidate 

You may be in a similar role in an academy, college, school or not for profit organisation looking for a more flexible job or a finance manager in a similar organisation looking for more responsibility.  Applications are also welcome from candidates who are currently in industry or practice but who can demonstrate that they meet the requirements of the person specification. 

The job is advertised as 0.8FTE term time only plus eight days.  There is some flexibility around this and 0.8FTE could be spread over 5 days.  The eight days is to cover additional work required during the production of the annual accounts and audit and cover required in the summer holidays. 

The full time equivalent salary is circa £50,000 depending on experience. This equates to circa £36,000 for 0.8FTE term time only plus eight days.  The post holder will be eligible to join the Local Government Pension Scheme (19.6% employer contributions). The start date is 28 August 2018 with an earlier start date if you are available. 

The Department 

The Finance Director works in an open plan office alongside the rest of the department.  The department consists of an AAT qualified Finance Manager who runs the day to day financial operations and administers the bursary, an AAT qualified Accounts Assistant who assists the Finance Manager and collects adult fees and a Payroll Administrator.  All staff are part-time and term time only.  Turnover in the department is low and the newest member of the team joined four years ago. The College currently uses Sage 50 but is currently investigating upgrading to Sage 200 Education.  Management accounts, budgeting and statutory accounts are produced using Excel.  Payroll is outsourced to Surrey County Council and cleaning and catering are also outsourced.  The MIS system used for funding claims is REMS from Civica.  Simply Personnel is used for HR but this is maintained outside the department. 

Training and Development 

There will be an induction period with the existing post holder. 

Woking is one of 8 sixth form colleges who work closely together in the S7 Consortium of Sixth Form Colleges in Surrey and Sussex. There is a very supportive S7 Finance Directors’ network and S7 personnel/payroll network.  The College belongs to the Sixth Form Colleges Association which offers training and support to sixth form colleges.  The College is committed to staff development and staff attending courses to meet their training needs.

Salary: FTE c£50K (c £36K pro-rata for 0.8 term time only plus 8 days) depending on experience

Closing Date: 9am, Thursday 1 March 2018

Interviews: Stage 1 on Wednesday 14 March 2018 Stage 2 (for candidates who are successful at Stage 1) on Thursday 15 March 2018.

To Apply:  Please download the Finance Director Application Pack and click the Apply Now button to access the Application Form   

Apply by completing and returning the Application Form to:     

Kirsty Crook, Personnel Officer:  email: kcr@woking.ac.uk  direct telno: 01483 227438  

Woking College, Rydens Way, Woking, GU22 9DL.   Reception telno: 01483 761036  

Website:  www.woking.ac.uk