Job Advert
Hours: Full Time, 37.5 hours per week
Duration: Fixed Term / Secondment until 31st March 2025*
Flexible Location: NES is a remote friendly employer supporting office, remote and hybrid working. We’re happy to talk about how you want to work.
Who We Are
NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is the national health board with statutory responsibilities to effect sustainable change through workforce development, education and training across the health and social care system in Scotland, while working at UK level with partner organisations.
We are the leader in educational design, delivery and quality assurance and provide wide-ranging support to workforce development. We are the official provider of workforce statistics for NHS Scotland and support national workforce planning. We design and develop digital technologies supporting innovation and transformation.
Our purpose is to drive change and improve the quality of care experienced by citizens across Scotland by ensuring that we have the right staff, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time. NES is integral to improving outcomes for people and in ensuring a skilled and capable workforce underpins the design and delivery of services. As an organisation, we recognise the significant contribution we can make to improving population health, reducing inequalities and economic development.
The Finance Department is responsible for:
- Providing expert financial advice, technical guidance and pro-active decision support to the whole of NES
- providing transactional processing and analytical services to the whole of NES
- producing the Board’s budgets and finance reports, business plans, Scottish Government returns, annual accounts and other statutory returns
- liaising with Internal and External Audit, the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. It works closely with the Health Finance, Corporate Governance and Value Directorate within Scottish Government with regard to NES’s current and future allocations and direction
- leading on financial management issues across the organisation, playing an important role in corporate governance
- ensuring a strong and effective internal control environment
- ensuring the finance systems/procedures meet all statutory requirements and support business needs
These responsibilities are shared across the 3 sections of the Finance team which are Finance Business Partnering; Governance & Operational Finance; and Management Information, Systems & Analysis.
The Finance Business Partnering team has a focus on:
- providing future focused decision support, technical financial advice and reports to budget holders to enable them to effectively manage income and expenditure for their area of responsibility and be confident that they are fully complying with relevant accounting standards and legislation.
- Using financial and operational management information to review and assess business performance.
- Building the relationships to effectively influence and challenge Business Decisions, Strategy and Outcomes
- working with Senior management/budget holders within NES to deliver efficiency savings and improved standards in the way NES operates
- producing the Board’s budgets, finance reports and business plans
- developing appropriate budgetary systems for NES
- preparing 3-year financial plans, evaluating all assumptions and associated risks within.
What you'll do
An exciting development opportunity has arisen within Finance to support Additional Cost of Teaching (ACT) in the clinical teaching of undergraduates. The role will work as part of the NES Medical ACT team as well as supporting Dental and Pharmacy ACT. NES ACT teams work in partnership with Scottish Government, NHS Scotland and Higher education institutions to support the clinical teaching of undergraduates studying in Scotland.
This role will support the Finance Manager(s) who deal with ACT - Medicine (£110m), Dentistry (£20m) and Pharmacy (£3m). Initially the focus will be on Medical ACT.
The post holder will
- gain knowledge of the history, principles, processes and general concepts around Medical ACT.
- Provide support and guidance on the use of the ACT Finance Processes.
- Respond constructively to complex queries from internal and external stakeholders, taking part in formal and informal discussions, ensuring contributions meet the needs of the audience and asking questions to clarify understanding.
- Accurately record, monitor and report on Medical ACT bids throughout the year from/to a wide range of stakeholders.
- Maintain quality and delivery of the existing Medical ACT system while at the same time responding to new needs and demands from stakeholders and policy imperatives.
- Ensure all necessary records are maintained
- Produce monthly reports on Medical ACT, and undertake comprehensive analysis to support the ongoing development and performance management of Medical ACT
- Support the creation of the annual allocation model, reviewing data provided for the process and generating the subsequent information required for allocation letters and accountability reports.
- Support the ongoing development and management of the Finance Medical ACT function.
- Identify process and reporting improvements and contribute to the creation of innovative solutions to address information gaps and improve the quality of information provided to users.
- Contribute to the preparation of the annual operational/corporate plan covering all Medical ACT activities.
- Contribute to the operational efficiency of the databases and the computerised procedures and data transfers as appropriate to the role
- In time, provide similar support to Dental and Pharmacy ACT teams
- Participate in various steering and working groups to contribute towards the development of relevant policy and service improvement.
What you'll bring
These will include but are not restricted to;
- The postholder will exercise discretion in prioritising, planning and organising their own workload and will deal autonomously with tasks and priorities as they arise on a daily basis and over longer-term projects.
- Experience in collection, analysis and reporting of large quantities of qualitative and quantitative data, normally within Excel.
- Experience of understanding and maintaining financial models
- Excellent and applied IT and information management skills especially in MS excel
- Ability to manage own efficiently over long projects
- Willingness to question processes and outcomes.
- Excellent analytical and numerical skills with an ability to exercise judgement appropriately
- The postholder is expected to be self motivated and self starting and to be capable of acting on their own initiative in exploring priorities, communicating with stakeholders as required and deciding when it is necessary to refer to line management.
- Good communication skills to communicate clearly, effectively and confidently with colleagues of all levels in the workplace, Scottish Government, other Boards and third sector organisations.
- Willingness to travel to other NES offices as required
- Knowledge of the public Health sector desirable but not essential.
Informal enquiries may be directed to Ellena Biddulph, email: Ellena.bidulph@nhs.scot
For further information please refer to the Job Information Pack below.
* For NHS employee applicants: Secondment or SLA will be considered in the first instance
*Applicants who wish to apply on a secondment basis are strongly encouraged to discuss this with their current employer at the earliest opportunity.
Unless otherwise stated the deadline for applications is 23:59 hours on the closing date.
Closing date:16/3/23
Interview date: preferably in person 3rd April 2023
You must have eligibility and entitlement to work in the UK which is required to be maintained throughout your period of employment. Evidence of this must be produced upon request.
We actively encourage applicants from a range of backgrounds, regardless of gender, age, disability, race, sexual orientation, religion or belief. https://www.careers.nhs.scot/about/who-we-are/
If you have any queries regarding the application portal or the recruitment process, please contact us at: NES HR Recruitment: EoS.ERRS@nhs.scot