Overview

The Finance Business Partnering Group within prisons provide Finance Business Partners (FBPs) to support HMPPS, act as a trusted advisors and provide independent challenge. FBPs have a level of authority and respect to proactively influence decision making and drive continuous improvement, and play a central role in planning the workforce requirements to support a safe regime. Within the current economic climate the role of the finance business partner is especially important; acting as the liaison between financial processes and budget holders, and supporting senior prisons leaders to navigate through times of exceptional inflationary cost pressures and initiating and supporting plans to mitigate against this.

The DG Ops. prison analysis FBP team is small: Led by a Grade 7 and with 3 x SEO (including this post). The work they do however impacts across all prisons in England and Wales and there is a direct influence into national outcomes.

The team that this role sits in is responsible for reporting on the in-year performance of all areas that sit under the prisons remit of the Director General Operations for HMPPS. The post holder will work with the wider team on the monthly production of information to stakeholders. The team also leads on any in-year efficiency exercise, fiscal events and change.

The post holder will become the subject matter expert for all spend and budget requirements relating new accommodation as it comes online.

The post holder will finance business partner one of the prisons headquarters groups, providing expert advice and support to staff with a non financial background, to aid decision making. Influencing skills are important.

In addition to salary, a pensionable, non-contractual specialist allowance will be applied to this role. Specialist allowances apply to certain roles only, are non-transferable to other roles and are subject to annual review.

Role Summary

FBP SEOs are responsible for developing expertise, building strong relationships, and understanding the business within a directorate, or possibly supporting a lower risk Director led unit. They aim to communicate financial data and other information clearly and provide valuable financial advice, challenge and support, strategic insight, and business solutions.

The post holder will arrange budget transfers and ensure processes around budgeting and forecasting within the wider Prisons Group for this budget are efficient, this includes identifying and resolving any issues that arise. They will maintain a record of all decisions made and will be part of the decision-making process, feeding into submission to the Prisons Leadership team and on occasion, Ministerial submissions.

Strong analytical skills are essential for this post. The post holder should be able to take complex financial information and interpret it and present it in a way that makes the biggest impact. Excellent Excel skills are essential.

The job holder will be required to undertake the following duties and responsibilities.

• Developing an understanding of the business, its stakeholders, and deliverables

• Building and maintaining relationships with customer budget holders

• Providing advice on compliance with policy, standards, accountabilities, and controls

• Translating, owning, and adding insight to financial data to provide clear information and evidence to support business activities and requirements

• Providing guidance at appropriate level budget holder meetings and boards

• Reviewing and providing input to business cases/ strategic documentation

• Identifying and applying relevant costs, benefits, and investment appraisal techniques

• Providing relevant coaching and training to the business

• Providing ad-hoc analysis and presentations to drive and support business decisions, such as efficiency and cost reduction options, using all available data and analytics tools

Key skills:

• Stakeholder Engagement - develop and maintain strong partnerships with senior prison leaders and senior leaders within the Finance Directorate.

• Budget management - work with budget holders to develop robust budget plans and monitor delivery

• Risks and issues - identify and monitor budget risks and opportunities, supporting stakeholders to develop mitigating actions

• Reporting - to be able to translate financial information to non-finance stakeholders, providing the narrative behind the numbers to influence decision making

• Critical friend to the business - feel confident to challenge and advise business colleagues on their spending plans and keep a focus on outcomes and business priorities. Give advice to support decision making, encouraging options analysis and appropriate governance. Use your insight to add value.

Interpersonal Skills

• Possesses emotional intelligence and can think empathetically, considering the strategic goals of others

• Fosters a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration between the business, finance, and other corporate services

• Can tailor their communication style to a range of audiences, including internal and external stakeholders

• Uses facts and evidence to aid negotiation and influencing

• Helps others to understand the interdependencies between business and finance

• Proactive and passionate, inspiring others to continuously improve

• Ability to "speak the language" of finance to business, and vice versa, acting as the critical translator between the two

Professional Skills

Key for Levels of Professional Skills

• A = Awareness

• W = Working

• P = Practitioner

• E = Expert

Practitioner and expert rated skills will be assessed at interview

Qualifications

• Proven experience within a similar role and experience of working in a large and complex organisation

• Full or nearing completion of CCAB qualification (incl. CIMA, ACCA, CIPFA, ACA) or willing to study towards being fully qualified.

Entry Routes

Suitable for staff with the required skills and / or experience from within or outside Finance

Progression Routes

Staff in this role typically transfer to Management Reporting SEO, Financial Accounting and Reporting SEO or Business Support SEO roles, or progress to Financial Business Partnering G7, Management Reporting G7 or Financial Accounting and Reporting G7 roles.

Behaviours Required

Success Profiles will enable a fairer and more inclusive method of recruitment by enabling us to assess the range of experiences, abilities, strengths, behaviours, and technical/professional skills required for different roles. This flexible approach to recruitment focuses more on finding the right candidate for the specific role. To find out more about Success Profiles to support your application please click here for further guidance.

• Managing a Quality Service - Lead behaviour

• Communicating and Influencing

• Working Together

• Making Effective Decisions

Please refer to the Civil Service Behaviours Framework, which can be found here, to complete this application: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/717275/CS_Behaviours_2018.pdf

Application process:

Sift

Please provide examples of how you meet the behaviours listed below please show evidence of this Professional Skill - ‘Budgeting, forecasting, and costing’:

• Managing a Quality Service - Lead behaviour

• Communicating and Influencing

• Working Together

• Making Effective Decisions

If we receive a large volume of applications, we reserve the right to conduct the sift based on one lead behaviour. The chosen lead behaviour for this campaign is Managing a Quality Service

Experience:

• A Statement of Suitability. Please use your personal statement (in no more than 500 words) to explain how your experience meets the requirements of this role.

• CV (this must be anonymised)

Technical (you will confirm you have these or nearing completion):

• Proven experience within a similar role and experience of working in a large and complex organisation

• Full or nearing completion of CCAB qualification (incl. CIMA, ACCA, CIPFA, ACA) or willing to study towards being fully qualified.

To apply please complete the online application form. Applications will be sifted by a panel who will look at the Civil Service Behaviour framework and what is evidenced in your application.

Interview

Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to interview. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate the role requirements within the application behaviour responses.

Candidates who are successful following the sift process will be invited to interview, where the Behavioural elements and Strengths will be tested further.

Behaviours:

• Managing a Quality Service - Lead behaviour

• Communicating and Influencing

• Working Together

• Making Effective Decisions

Presentation - As part of the interview candidates will be asked to deliver a short presentation, the topic of which will be shared prior to the interview. The presentation will assess these Professional Skills - Oral and written presentation skills and Data and analytics interpretation.

Interview dates: Expected from WC 28th April 2025

For further information please feel free to contact Emma Deane at emma.deane1@justice.gov.uk