Our aim is for everyone in the National Church Institutions (NCIs) to feel that they belong, and are valued for who they are and what they contribute. Together, our people contribute in different ways towards our common purpose, whichever NCI they work in and whatever their background.

The National Church Institutions (NCIs) are national administrative bodies that work together to support the mission and ministry of the Church of England. Their activities are hugely varied, ranging from management of a multi-billion-pound investment fund, to a grant-giving charity, a housing service for retired clergy and the administration of four multi-employer pension schemes.

The Finance department is a shared services function working across the NCIs to provide a comprehensive, cost-effective finance service to each organisation, and helping to co-ordinate joint projects where appropriate. Finance incorporates transaction processing, financial and management accounting, SAP systems support, payroll and procurement.

The Finance Operations and Change Manager is a critical role working across the Finance team to develop and enhance our processes, driving efficient working practices and improving service quality.

You will be responsible for designing and implementing improved processes within an appropriate control framework, setting service delivery standards for each team and developing tools to monitor performance and drive continuous improvement. You will lead a range of improvement projects across the Finance team to drive efficient working practices and improve service quality.

You will be a CCAB qualified accountant, and an experienced change manager, well versed in business-processing mapping, process optimisation and re-engineering. You will ‘know what good looks like’, be up-to-speed with industry best practice techniques, and be able to foster a culture of sustainable change and continuous improvement. You will be someone who is always looking to improve processes and work smarter, collaborating with your finance colleagues to drive best practice in everything we do.

You will be a strong communicator, passionate about what you do and able to inspire enthusiasm in others. You will be able to engage in a credible way with a wide range of stakeholders to optimise solutions, achieve buy-in and promote excellence.

You will be based at Church House, Westminster, London although currently, employees are working remotely due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Interviews will be held remotely using Zoom w/c 8^th February 2021.

In return we offer a unique environment with opportunities for continuous learning, generous annual leave for work life balance, season ticket loans and a range of benefits including discounted entry to attractions and what we feel is a market leading package when it comes to our pension scheme.

The Role

Process and system improvements

Responsible for leading a programme and agenda of continuous improvement within the Finance department, including:

• Proactively work across the Finance department to improve efficiency, resilience and control across teams and working practices, implementing new processes and solutions where applicable
• Work with the SAP team to ensure that full advantage in taken of available functionality in the finance system, and support the implementation of changes and improvements
• Work to optimise the quality and availability of financial information through reviewing how data is captured, input and reported
• Ensure that all key finance processes are mapped and documented appropriately

Internal controls and compliance

Responsible for ensuring finance processes are designed to maximise efficiency, accountability and oversight, including

• Ensure new or changed processes are designed within an appropriate financial control framework balancing efficient working practices with robust and effective internal control procedures
• Ensure that financial policies are well-designed, regularly updated and appropriately applied across the NCIs
• Develop and deliver compliance reporting to ensure adherence with key financial policies, controls and data quality requirements, including for example, reporting on retrospective purchase orders, staff and volunteer expenses, corporate credit cards etc.

Service quality and stakeholder communication

Responsible for supporting the finance team to improve customer service and engagement and through building strong relationships with stakeholders and developing internal monitoring tools, including:

• Identify key stakeholders, understanding their role and the impact of any changes upon them, engaging with them at all stages of any change programme
• Develop and deliver appropriate stakeholder communication plans, working with Internal Communications as appropriate to ensure changes are communicated clearly and effectively, promoting buy-in and compliance
• Develop service level agreements and targets for all core functions ensuring these are embedded in the team and understood by key stakeholders
• Develop and implement appropriate KPI reporting to monitor and measure compliance with SLAs, and identify opportunities to improve efficiency and effectiveness, ensuring that data is captured in an appropriate way to facilitate this
• Act as a key escalation point for customer issues, supporting team managers to respond appropriately, resolve problems and promote continuous learning and improvement

Other

• Collaborating with other members of the Finance team, including the Finance Business Partnering, SAP team, Tax and Compliance, and Procurement, to ensure that services are delivered in a joined-up way
• Promoting enhanced financial literacy and financial accountability across the organisations, undertaking relevant training in key areas

The Requirements

Essential

Skills/Aptitude:

• Strong process design skills – able to critically evaluate end-to-end processes, identify opportunities for improvement and implement them
• Excellent IT skills, including advanced Excel and strong finance system skills, with a good understanding of data structures and chart of accounts optimisation
• Strong analytical skills and excellent attention to detail
• Well organised with an ability to work calmly and effectively under pressure
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, able to engage a wide range of stakeholders at all levels, including both finance professionals and non-finance staff
• Strong influencing and persuasive skills, able to engage and motivate others and achieve buy-in without direct line management responsibility
• Proactive, self-motivated and enthusiastic, confident in decision-making and problem solving
• Business analyst skills – able to understand business needs and translate them into practical solutions

Knowledge/Experience:

• Considerable experience in leading and delivering successful change, improving processes and ways of working within a team and with other teams
• Good understanding of best practice financial processing techniques and up-to-date with relevant technology solutions
• Experience of project management using a recognised project management methodology
• Experience of end-to-end business process mapping, able to produce clear and accurate documentation to underpin process redesign activities

Education:

• CCAB or equivalent professional accounting body qualification

Circumstances:

• Willingness to work in excess of contracted hours to ensure completion of deadlines

Desirable

• SAP experience
• PRINCE2 Project management qualification or similar
• Lean, Six Sigma qualification or similar
• Experience of working for a large charity

We in the National Church Institutions support the mission and ministries of the Church all over England. We work with parishes, dioceses (regional offices), schools, other ministries and our partners at a national and international level.

Excellence, Respect, Integrity

We follow these three values in everything we do, whether we are of Christian faith, another faith or no faith. To learn more about working for National Church Institutions and our benefits, please click here

As a Disability Confident Leader, we actively look to attract, recruit and retain those of you who are disabled.

As a member of the Armed Forces Covenant, we welcome applications from those of you who have served in our Armed Forces and their families.

We are committed to being an equal opportunities employer and to ensuring that everyone, job applicants, customers and other people with whom we deal, are treated fairly and not subject to discrimination. We will do whatever is necessary to provide genuine equality of opportunity. We continuously review our policies and processes to support our aim to create a workforce as diverse as the nation the Church of England serves..

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