Strategic Finance Business Partners
| Posting date: | 25 June 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £56,646 to £65,478 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 13 July 2025 |
| Location: | Sutton, London |
| Remote working: | Hybrid - work remotely up to 2 days per week |
| Company: | London Borough of Sutton |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 3608 |
Summary
About the Financial Planning / Corporate Role
As our Corporate Strategic Finance Business Partner, you will be at the heart of our financial planning. You will act as a critical friend to the Council, delivering insightful analysis that informs strategic decision-making. Your focus will be on interpreting and applying policies to support the council's needs, with your thinking focused on the annual business planning cycle.
Key responsibilities include:
Supporting the development of the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) and ensuring it is underpinned by robust and accurate working papers.
Leading and co-ordinating the creation of detailed budget estimates to be implemented at the start of the financial year.
Providing detailed analysis of grant settlements and other funding announcements, clearly communicating the financial impact to senior officers.
Leading on future years' forecasting and scenario planning for income from Business Rates and Council Tax.
Working collaboratively with service directorate partners to ensure financial risks are reflected in medium-term plans.
Providing high-quality professional advice on the financial implications of corporate proposals and drafting financial comments for Committee Reports.
About the Service BP Role
As the Strategic Finance Business Partner for the Resources Directorate, you will be the senior finance professional for the area, developing subject matter expertise and providing robust financial leadership. You will lead and manage the provision of business partner support, ensuring your team's resources are targeted towards managing key financial risks and major budget pressures.
Key responsibilities include:
Providing direct support to the Council's directors across its Resources directorate, enabling them to protect the Council's financial health.
Challenging and testing service budget proposals to ensure they are realistic, viable, and commercially sound.
Acting as the service gateway to the Shared Finance Service, ensuring stakeholders have access to high-quality professional advice.
Supporting and challenging services to manage key financial risks.
Providing high-quality professional advice on the financial implications of service proposals and drafting financial comments for Committee Reports.
Leading on the development of a culture that encourages challenge and empowers staff to deliver more from their financial resources.
Our Ideal Candidate
We are seeking a lead professional with an innovative and commercially astute mindset. You will have a proven ability to interpret complex financial information and the credibility to challenge and influence senior stakeholders.
The ideal candidate will have:
A completed relevant professional qualification (e.g., CIPFA, CIMA, MBA) or demonstrable equivalent experience.
Experience delivering strategic finance advice within a large and complex organisation.
Experience working alongside senior managers in a senior finance role.
Experience providing advice and challenge to budget holders and managers.
Experience developing an in-depth technical understanding of complex financial issues to support financial planning.
Our Offer To You
As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across - however big or small - will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.
In addition, we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff, supported by our IT infrastructure, including Google Chromebooks and Google Apps. Our Flexible Working - Smarter Working Scheme embraces new ways of working. It provides improved work life balance for our staff as it allows staff to work from a variety of locations and staff are not required to work within the office 5 days a week.
Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:
Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
Flexi-time (Please note, this applies to roles at grades 1-9 only)
Three volunteering days per year in Sutton or Kingston
Comprehensive learning and development programme
Local and national discounts for shopping, eating out and leisure activities
Interest free season ticket loans
Local Government Pension Scheme
Car parking scheme
Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
Zip car scheme
Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
Subsidised gym membership
As our Corporate Strategic Finance Business Partner, you will be at the heart of our financial planning. You will act as a critical friend to the Council, delivering insightful analysis that informs strategic decision-making. Your focus will be on interpreting and applying policies to support the council's needs, with your thinking focused on the annual business planning cycle.
Key responsibilities include:
Supporting the development of the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) and ensuring it is underpinned by robust and accurate working papers.
Leading and co-ordinating the creation of detailed budget estimates to be implemented at the start of the financial year.
Providing detailed analysis of grant settlements and other funding announcements, clearly communicating the financial impact to senior officers.
Leading on future years' forecasting and scenario planning for income from Business Rates and Council Tax.
Working collaboratively with service directorate partners to ensure financial risks are reflected in medium-term plans.
Providing high-quality professional advice on the financial implications of corporate proposals and drafting financial comments for Committee Reports.
About the Service BP Role
As the Strategic Finance Business Partner for the Resources Directorate, you will be the senior finance professional for the area, developing subject matter expertise and providing robust financial leadership. You will lead and manage the provision of business partner support, ensuring your team's resources are targeted towards managing key financial risks and major budget pressures.
Key responsibilities include:
Providing direct support to the Council's directors across its Resources directorate, enabling them to protect the Council's financial health.
Challenging and testing service budget proposals to ensure they are realistic, viable, and commercially sound.
Acting as the service gateway to the Shared Finance Service, ensuring stakeholders have access to high-quality professional advice.
Supporting and challenging services to manage key financial risks.
Providing high-quality professional advice on the financial implications of service proposals and drafting financial comments for Committee Reports.
Leading on the development of a culture that encourages challenge and empowers staff to deliver more from their financial resources.
Our Ideal Candidate
We are seeking a lead professional with an innovative and commercially astute mindset. You will have a proven ability to interpret complex financial information and the credibility to challenge and influence senior stakeholders.
The ideal candidate will have:
A completed relevant professional qualification (e.g., CIPFA, CIMA, MBA) or demonstrable equivalent experience.
Experience delivering strategic finance advice within a large and complex organisation.
Experience working alongside senior managers in a senior finance role.
Experience providing advice and challenge to budget holders and managers.
Experience developing an in-depth technical understanding of complex financial issues to support financial planning.
Our Offer To You
As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across - however big or small - will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.
In addition, we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff, supported by our IT infrastructure, including Google Chromebooks and Google Apps. Our Flexible Working - Smarter Working Scheme embraces new ways of working. It provides improved work life balance for our staff as it allows staff to work from a variety of locations and staff are not required to work within the office 5 days a week.
Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:
Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
Flexi-time (Please note, this applies to roles at grades 1-9 only)
Three volunteering days per year in Sutton or Kingston
Comprehensive learning and development programme
Local and national discounts for shopping, eating out and leisure activities
Interest free season ticket loans
Local Government Pension Scheme
Car parking scheme
Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
Zip car scheme
Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
Subsidised gym membership