Job vacancy: Senior Management Accountant, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Croydon

Job summary

Main area: Finance
Grade: band 7
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref: 334-NCL-7636292-MU

Employer: South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: Jeanette Wallace House
Town: Croydon
Salary: £53,751 - £60,651 per annum inclusive of HCAS
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 15/12/2025 23:59

Senior Management Accountant

band 7

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone’s potential as change makers.

The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.

As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Job Purpose:

The primary purpose of the Senior Management Accountant is to provide management and financial information and support to their assigned Directorates and ensure that their financial requirements are understood and delivered by themself and/or by other members of the financial management team.

The Senior Management Accountant is responsible for the delivery of all aspects of operational financial management within a Directorate area, providing advice, information, analysis and interpretation to Directors and budget holders to underpin effective decision making and meaningful performance management . They will be accountable for delivery of finance reporting for the Directorate, maintaining financial controls to support governance and providing financial support to budget setting, cost improvement and productivity schemes.

The main purposes of the role are –

· Ensuring the effective provision of a comprehensive management accounting service.

· To prepare annual budgets and quarterly forecasts, including supporting scenarios and Commentary

· To coordinate and produce accurate and timely in month forecasting.

· To investigate and challenge variances against budget and forecast, providing analysis and commentary where appropriate.

· Undertake regular meetings with budget holders (without supervision) to review accounts and support their understanding of the financial position

Key Responsibilities:

1) Finance & Business Planning

· Produce summary financial plans for services ensuring they reflect their strategic objectives.

· Identify financial risks and produce a downside financial plan and help to identify mitigations.

· To lead the annual and periodic detailed budget setting processes in conjunction with budget holders and the senior management team, endeavouring to ensure that resultant targets (both financial and non-financial) are realistic and are fully understood by budget holders. To ensure that budgets are congruent with Trust targets and activity plans.

· To provide financial input, where required into the preparation of Directorate or Trust wide business cases, working with both financial and operational managers.

2) Reporting

· Produce accurate and timely monthly finance reports to ensure the veracity of information and highlight and substantiate key issues – meeting the monthly reporting deadlines.

· Monitor the performance of those budgets and analyse key variances timely, proposing remedial action as required.

· To produce accurate financial forecasts. The forecasts plans should highlight potential opportunities and risks.

· Assist/complete financial returns and questionnaires as required.

3) Productivity & Efficiency

· Assist the Directorate with planning and reporting of the Cost Improvement Programme (CIP) for the Directorate.

· To further develop cost awareness, identifying and quantifying key cost drivers and being able to model the implications of changes in activity on these.

4) Engagement

· Promote a modern and collaborative approach to engaging clinicians in financial management.

· To work positively and professionally with other members of the Finance Department to ensure that the financial requirements of the Directorates are understood and delivered.

· Work with the whole finance team to deliver standardisation of all areas of process and development.

5) Other

· To act at all times as a representative for the Finance Directorate ensuring that the professional reputation of the Directorate is upheld.

· Ad-hoc duties as required - there will be a number of non-routine tasks to be undertaken on an ad-hoc basis in order to assist the Finance Business Partners or Deputy Director of Finance.

Personal Specification:

Each requirement will either be identified through the candidate’s application form (A) or interview (I). Candidates should not be hired unless they have ALL essential requirements. Areas that can be developed through L&D can be deemed desirable.

Essential Requirements	A/I	Desirable Requirements	A/I
CCAB finalist or equivalent experience	A	CCAB Qualified	A
Understanding of the key operational and financial challenges facing the NHS	I	Mental Health NHS Trusts in particular	I
Minimum of 3 years experience working in a large organisation providing management accounts support.	I	In an NHS setting.
Able to analyse, compare and interpret highly complex financial and performance data using skills, knowledge and judgement	I
Proficient in Microsoft office packages including Excel and the ability to manipulate and interrogate large databases / datasets	A
Able to assess workload and manage resources to meet overlapping targets and objectives.	I
Excellent communication skills (written and verbal) and ability to express highly complex, sensitive or contentious issues clearly, including strong abilities in being able to influence, persuade and negotiate at senior management level.	I
Excellent presentation and negotiation skills	I
Experience of investigation and analysis into financial issues including evidence of detailed and precise report writing skills	A
Able to work autonomously with the skills to make complex decisions independently	I

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

CCAB finalist or equivalent experience

Desirable criteria

CCAB qualified

Experience

Essential criteria

Minimum of 3 years experience working in a large organsiation providing management accounts support
Experience of investigation, analysis and interpretation of large amounts of financial data

Desirable criteria

3 years management accountant experience in an NHS setting

Skills

Essential criteria

indepth working knowledge and experience of systems, excel, budgeting systems, financial ledger systems, reporting software
able to assess workload and manage resources to meet overlapping targets and objectives
excellent communication skills, written and verbal

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights. We aim to put this commitment into practice by:

Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice
Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment
We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity

Please note:

That all applications for this post will need to be made online
That you read and understand the Job Description and Person Specification attached to the role. Your Statement in Support should reflect the requirements specified as your application will be judged against these criteria
That the closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible
That once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs
That should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not been successful
That priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees
That should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process
That we are a smoke-free Trust

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion , Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe’

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