High Needs Funding Team Manager

About the role

North Northamptonshire Council is seeking an experienced and motivated High Needs Funding Team Manager to lead our High Needs Funding Team and oversee the effective management of the High Needs Block Budget. This is a vital role within Children’s Services, ensuring that children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) receive the funding support they need for their education.

As the Team Manager, you will be required to collate and keep records to support the strategic oversight of the High Needs Block Budget and all associated funding processes, ensuring accurate allocation, strong financial controls, and robust forecasting.

Line management of other staff within the high needs funding team will also be required.

What will you be doing?

In this varied leadership role, you will:

• Manage and oversee the payments approved from the High Needs Block Budget, including accurate budget setting, forecasting and financial reporting.
• Lead the High Needs Funding Team to deliver timely and accurate funding allocations to educational providers across a range of payment methods.
• Extract, analyse and interpret complex data to support budget planning and financial analysis.
• Maintain high‑quality financial records, reconcile accounts and provide clear reports to senior leadership.
• Provide expert support and advice to SEN budget managers, helping them to understand and manage their budget positions.
• Ensure compliance with statutory High Needs Funding guidance and keep up to date with national requirements.
• Develop and refine processes to improve efficiency and respond to changing service needs.

About you

We’re looking for someone who brings both financial expertise and strong leadership skills. You will have:

• Experience in budget setting, monitoring, forecasting and managing complex financial processes.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret and interrogate complex datasets.
• Excellent financial management knowledge, including creating and implementing payment processes.
• Proficiency in IT systems, especially Microsoft Excel.
• Experience managing teams and supervising staff.
• Ability to manage high workloads, prioritise independently, and meet deadlines.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, including explaining financial information to non‑finance colleagues.

Our Benefits

Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we’re transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.

You’ll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!

Why choose us?

We offer a vibrant working environment with:

• a competitive salary
• a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
• lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
• generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
• hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.

We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.

About us

Our Values and Behaviours

Our values define who we are and how we operate, by forming the foundation for how we interact with our customers, colleagues and provide our services. They are also at the forefront of our decision making and delivery and are:

Customer-focused
Respectful
Efficient
Supportive
Trustworthy

Our key commitments help ensure that the priorities we make, now and in the future, maintain the necessary breadth of focus in those areas that we believe matter most.

Disability Confident Employer

We are proud to be a recognised Disability Confident Employer and is committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.

Our Employment and Disability Service provides bespoke support to individuals facing barriers to employment, helping them work towards their goals to start, stay and succeed in employment. For further information please click here The Employment and Disability Service (EADS) | North Northamptonshire Council

Armed Forces Community

The council obtained the Gold status award for the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS).

Further information can be found at Jobs and careers | North Northamptonshire Council (northnorthants.gov.uk)