Finance Business Manager

About Us

West Sussex is a county of contrast and opportunity. From our vibrant coastal towns to our rural heartlands, we are proud of our communities and ambitious for the people we serve. West Sussex County Council is a diverse organisation that provides services to more than 850,000 residents every day. As an employer we recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, a healthy work-life balance and are rewarded for the work they do.

The context for West Sussex County Council is changing. Increasing demographic pressures, continuing challenges to provide residents and communities with greater levels of choice and control over services, and the tighter financial constraints placed on the authority, mean that the Council needs to change the way it operates.

Effective business management develops and delivers support to the Adult Services Directorate and enables it to operate as an effective and efficient service. This role operates within a complex, multi-provider environment with a wide range of partners to ensure the necessary corporate capabilities are in place (for example, HR, change, business and market intelligence, finance planning and management, democratic services and processing). There is a strong focus on customers, performance, driving efficiencies and providing best value for money for residents.

About The Job

Salary: £48,226 to £51,356 per annum
Working Pattern: Full time, 37 hours per week
Contract Type: Fixed term until 01/10/2026
Location: Office base County Hall, Chichester with hybrid working
Interview Date: Tuesday 30th September

The role of the Finance Business Manager for Adult Services is pivotal, supporting the Assistant Director and their Senior Leadership Team to ensure that an effective, efficient and professional service is delivered at all times. You will support the management of the Adult Services budget through the monitoring and recording of savings targets, efficiency initiatives and the service budget.

Part of the role is providing a link between performance, finance and operations on key business activities. This includes advising and supporting the financial and business aspects of existing and proposed service models, reporting monthly, including commercial aspects, analysing and interpreting complex data, in order to inform business decisions, provision of reports and recommendations, identifying areas of potential financial risk, supporting risk management and
monitoring of service performance.

To succeed in this role you need strong analytical skills with the ability to communicate with people at all levels of the organisation and external partners including the public. You will be personally resourceful and pro-active and able to work autonomously.

As a Finance Business Manager you may be required to manage a small team, and to travel to various locations throughout the county.

Experience and Skills

Please include information and examples of how you meet the following criteria within your application, as they are the criteria your application will be short listed against.

Key Skills:
1. Ability to research, analyse and interpret information to make effective judgements in order to review the effectiveness of activities and service provision, plan long term and set timescales.
2. Ability to identify and analyse risks, and manipulate complex financial data relating to large budgets in the region of £100m.
3. Ability to anticipate problems, plan solutions and make sound pragmatic problem-solving decisions and recommendations, which will have a wider service impact, particularly in relation to providing a varied and complex service, resource issues and partnership building.
4. Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence the actions of others and communicate information which may be complex and contentious.
Including the ability to negotiate solutions across wide areas of the business and successfully convince others of the need to take a specific course of action.
5. Ability to challenge existing practices and identify innovative solutions within the required framework.
6. Ability to articulate problems and lead staff to a position where they can find and implement solutions.

Qualifications and/or experience:
* Post graduate diploma in management studies, or equivalent management qualification or management experience.
* Experience of monitoring and setting budgets effectively to deliver a service within available resources.
* Experience of contributing to the development of business strategies and translating strategies into operational policy and procedure and delivering outcomes.
* Sound and accurate IT knowledge e.g. Microsoft Office, and expert at data handling.

Rewards and Benefits

For a full list of the benefits offered to you as a West Sussex County Council employee you can find them on our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further Information

The reference number for this role is CAFHE05908.

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Wendy Shepherd (Head of Service: Health, Hospitals and Sourcing) at . For issues or queries regarding your application please contact .

To apply, upload your CV and complete the application explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to an enhanced DBS check, 5 years referencing and a health check.

West Sussex County Council is an equal opportunities employer committed to promoting an environment that is inclusive and free from all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination and values the diversity of its people. We actively welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and take every possible step to ensure that no individual will be disadvantaged.

For information regarding your eligibility to apply for this role under our Disability or Veteran's Guaranteed Interview Scheme (if you meet all the essential criteria), this can be found on our application help page.

Note for Recruitment Agencies: We prefer to hire people directly, but we do have a supplier list for when we need a helping hand. We'll be in touch directly if we need you!