Stevenage (Hertfordshire) / (PT & FT) Academy Trust Consultancy Manager / Employer

HFLRecruitment

Contract: Permanent, 29.6 hours (4 days) to 37 hours (5 days) per week, 52 weeks (term time plus two weeks considered)
Salary: Band 6 – FTE Up to £50,000 p.a depending on experience (pro-rated for reduced hours)
Location: Hybrid working consisting of remote working, with flexibility required to work across educational settings in Hertfordshire and neighbouring counties and for occasional visits to Robertson House, Stevenage.

Are you a finance or business management professional looking for a rewarding career in the education sector, where no two days are the same?

Are you looking for a role where you can support a team to deliver high quality consultancy services to academy trusts?

Could this opportunity fulfil your next career move?

We are looking for an individual to lead our academies finance team, primarily focussing on the delivery of our consultancy work to academy trusts as well as working with your own portfolio of schools.

The team you will be managing will comprise of qualified accountants and internal auditors whose focus is the delivery of technical consultancy to academy trusts. The purpose of the role is to support the team in delivery of work and to engage with the wider Trust Operations and Finance team in the development and delivery of collaborative projects to school including HR, governance and wider business management.

We are looking for an individual who can bring a strategic business perspective to the team, feeding into joint projects such as office reviews, academy trust growth and procurement. Experience of having worked in the education sector is desirable but not essential and full training will be provided.

The Trust Operations and Finance team works with academy trusts, to provide a range of services including CFO support, outsourced finance functions, internal audit, HR business partnering and governance consultancy. This role will work with the academies finance team within the department, supporting the delivery of our financial consultancy services to trusts, including providing Finance Manager cover and CFO support when required.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a growth area of our business, working collaboratively with a range of teams from across the business to develop and deliver new services.

Would you like to know more information about this opportunity? If so, have a look at the Job Outline and visit the HFL Education website.

To apply, email hfl.recruitment@hfleducation.org with a CV along with a cover letter to include responses to the following questions:

1. Please explain your motivation for wishing to join HFL Education and why you want to work with schools?
   
2. Please describe a situation you have managed and delivered a project / business objective to meet a tight deadline?
   
3. How do you build effective relationships with colleagues in your team? and provide support to peers and team members to deliver new and adopt best practices, when the majority of your work may be performed remotely or offsite.
   
4. How would you manage conflicting priorities, between servicing current customers and clients against demand for new consultancy work, which would be an integral part of overall budget targets?
   

As part of our move towards eradicating unconscious bias within the recruitment process, we will be anonymising your forms.

Closing Date: Friday 24th March 2023 at 9am.
Interview Date: Week commencing 3rd April in Stevenage.

Benefits: a generous employer pension contribution, 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays (rising to 31 days after five-years) or the equivalent paid for Term Time employees, family-friendly policies, hybrid working, paid mileage, a cycle to work scheme, onsite charging points for electric vehicles, access to mental health and wellbeing support, company performance bonus, professional development opportunities, benefit schemes for discounts and cashback offers, and more.

HFL is committed to being an equal opportunities employer. We insist on the equal treatment of all current and prospective colleagues and will never condone discrimination on the basis of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership.

HFL is also equally committed to becoming an anti-racist organisation and we encourage you to view our Anti-racist position statement which gives clarity on our anti-racist stance. In our relentless efforts to be an anti-racist organisation, we recognise the negative impacts of under representation and lack of diversity in our organisation, our education system and in all aspects of our society. Therefore, for recruitment into any HFL post, where we have 2 or more candidates of equal merit, candidates with protected characteristics will be given advantage over candidates without such characteristics. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘tie-breaker’ and is referred to as ‘positive action’ in the Equality Act 2010.

To help us meet our high standards and aspirations of a fully diverse and inclusive workplace, we strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply and to join us.

Please note that if you are invited to interview, we will expect you to be prepared to discuss unconscious bias with us; we find these conversations more than any others give us all a good idea of what working together will be like.