Deputy Director of Finance (WQ00)

Job description

Job responsibilities

To provide leadership for Finance the Leeds Way and the Leeds Improvement Method, promoting and championing their use across the function.

To lead and promote staff engagement and continuous improvement to fulfil changing objectives and service improvements and to lead and champion national initiatives such as One NHS Finance across the functions and wider directorate.

To work with the Director of Finance and Associate Director of Finance and other senior managers to ensure that the desired culture and ways of working are fostered throughout the department, in particular a culture of openness and involvement of staff.

To identify new technologies and their application to Finance, encouraging a culture of innovation and improvement.

To deal with complaints, FOI requests or other issues as required, ensuring a thorough investigation of events, a full and fair response, corrective action where appropriate and compliance with statutory or policy timescales.

Strategy

Provide strategic and operational leadership for finance across the organisation and help strengthen its contribution to the Trusts activities.

Make sure the financial objectives for the Trust are clearly defined, understood and approved by the Board and fully meet the compliance requirements of NHS England.

Lead the financial performance & financial management of the Trust overseeing financial risk, investment appraisal, debts and other financing, compliance with financial covenants, cash flow management, financial compliance and financial systems development, together with tracking and supporting the achievement of Trust-wide savings programmes.

Assist the Director of Finance to define and develop the strategic direction of the finance function so that it is able to set challenging objectives for the future in response to changing needs.

Contribute to, advise on and participate in the corporate management and future strategy of the Trust in order to provide the best possible healthcare within available resources.

Maintain relationships with external professional advisers.

Reporting & Budgetary Control

Assess current and forecast outcomes of operational strategies and report on financial performance to stakeholders and regulators as appropriate

Ensure the Board receives regular reports on the financial performance of the organisation in sufficient detail to enable it to fulfil its fiduciary responsibilities, is made aware of the significant risks and is advised of the appropriate action to manage them.

Take responsibility for the preparation of timely and high quality reports for Audit Committee and Finance and Performance Committee and to attend the Committees in addition to the Director of Finance, or delegate as appropriate.

Ensure that the Trusts financial reporting and budgetary control system reflects service line management arrangements. The post holder will oversee the development of variance analysis, financial management reports and KPIs to enable managers and budget holders to understand the cost and drivers impacting on financial performance

To oversee the responsibility for accurate production of monthly financial and performance management information, including the monthly management accounts, within the timescales determined by the Trust.

Ensure that reports are of the highest quality by defining the quality assurance process and ensuring that key validations and reconciliations are completed.

Take responsibility for agreeing the final monthly positions and year-end forecasts of CSUs, for the purposes of reporting to the Board.

Present financial and performance information to Executive Directors / General Managers / Senior Managers via the relevant forums.

Manage the financial performance of CSUs against financial targets, using the most appropriate means available (including individual performance management meetings and 1:1s). Produce action plans to manage performance/risks and ensure that these are followed through.

Strategic / Financial Planning and Forecasting

Provide professional guidance to the Assistant Directors of Finance and their teams to develop the annual business plan, including the setting of objectives to achieve key performance targets and facilitate the delivery of the NHS targets.

Provide professional guidance to Assistant Directors of Finance and their teams during the annual financial planning process including identifying, coordinating and quantifying Service Developments, Cost Pressures, Waste Reduction Programmes (WRP) and Capital Bids to support the annual objectives.

Take a lead on financial aspects of Trust-wide WRP schemes and liaise with operational staff as required to ensure delivery.

Drive forward the continued development of the finance function in response to national policy drivers requiring interpretation of financial and other legislation/policies for the Trust.

Provide professional guidance to Assistant Directors of Finance during the annual budget setting process and contribute to the formulation of a Trust wide timetable and procedures to facilitate this.

Identify threats to the financial stability of the Trust and agree rectification measures with the relevant clinical or non-clinical managers, ensuring that plans are regularly maintained to ensure financial viability is retained.

The post holder will oversee the teams contribution to the Integrated Accountability Framework.

The post holder will be expected to represent Finance at a variety of Working Groups/Project Boards/Steering Groups as and when required by the Trusts agenda.

Income and Contracting

Within the national and any regional or local financial payment mechanisms, identify and deliver the structure and processes required for the Trust to ensure that all income due to the Trust is received. Understand the processes for capture of activity information and work closely with Informatics to ensure that these processes are robust.

Within the current financial regime, ensure that relevant internal stakeholders understand the levels of activity and income performance during the year.

Ensure that all requirements are met in relation to contracting for services with commissioners.

Costing and Capacity Planning

Ensure that consistent costing methodologies and mechanisms are in place across Finance to ensure that all hospital costs are accurately reflected in prices and reference costs.

Working with the finance team provide professional guidance to the Assistant Directors of Finance on the production of the annual National Cost Collection for the Trust and ensure that the process is completed in a robust and timely fashion. Liaise with operational staff to improve performance where costs are significantly above national averages.

Lead the provision of Patient Level Costing within the Trust, to support strategic decision making, and service improvement, alongside management accounting information.

Ensure that robust financial data is provided to inform the production of Business Cases and Financial Planning.

Financial Accounting

Support CSUs in developing and maintaining processes which deliver the Trusts Financial Accounting objectives for:

Accounts Payable including compliance with the Public Sector Payment Policy.

Accounts Receivable including improved debt recovery.

Treasury Management including improvement of the Trusts cash flow.

Statutory Accounting including the production of the Annual Accounts and monthly returns for NHSE.

This will require close working with the Director of Finance and Associate Director of Finance to deliver a range of processes and key performance indicators to support these objectives.

Quality Assurance

To ensure that the process of financial management takes into account the need to enhance the quality of care provided within the hospital.

To constantly review, update and upgrade information systems for managing the financial and accounting processes with the finance department.

To conduct complex audits designed to improve financial and accounting services.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• CCAB/CIMA qualified accountant with recognised substantial post qualification experience.

Desirable

• Masters Degree

Experience

Essential

• Extensive experience of Financial Management/Management accounting including significant post qualification experience operating at a strategic level.
• Demonstrated expertise working at a strategic finance level in a large, complex NHS or other similar organisation.

Skills & behaviours

Essential

• Evidence of managing and introducing financial reporting and expenditure control mechanisms in a large and complex organisation.
• Evidence of positive individual contribution to the successful financial position of a large and complex NHS or other similar organisation.
• Evidence of System working
• Strong financial and political judgement; understanding the dynamics of the NHS business, highly developed financial acumen and the need to balance decisions within a political environment
• Ability to effectively lead and motivate teams to manage change and achieve organisational goals

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details

Employer name

Leeds Teaching Hospitals

Address

St. James's University Hospital

Beckett Street

Leeds

LS9 7TF

Employer's website

https://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)