Job vacancy: Head of Capital Accounts, London Ambulance Service NHS Trust, London

Job summary

Main area: Finance
Grade: NHS AfC: Band 8b
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week (3 days a week minimum required in the office)
Job ref: 308-CORP-3063

Employer: London Ambulance Service NHS Trust
Employer type: NHS
Site: London Ambulance Service NHS Trust Trust HQ
Town: London
Salary: £70,387 - £80,465 per annum incl HCAS
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 14/07/2025 23:59
Interview date: 06/08/2025

Head of Capital Accounts

NHS AfC: Band 8b

Our vision is to deliver outstanding emergency and urgent care whenever and wherever needed for everyone in London, 24/7, 365 days a year. We are the busiest emergency ambulance service in the UK serving one of the world’s most dynamic and diverse cities. We provide emergency and urgent healthcare that is free to patients at the time they receive it.

We are the only NHS provider trust to serve the whole of London and the nine million people who live in, work in or visit the city. We cover an area of 620sq miles and have more than 8,000 people who work or volunteer for us – rising to 10,000 when including bank staff and students.

We answer around two million 999 calls a year and our crews attend more than 3000 emergencies a day. Our 24-hour 111 integrated urgent care services London answer around two million calls a year.

We play a leading role in integrating access to emergency and urgent care in the capital and are striving to ensure patients receive the right response, in the right place, at the right time

Our main role is to respond to emergency 999 calls, providing medical care to patients across the capital, 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. Other services we offer include providing pre-arranged patient transport and finding hospital beds. Working with the police and the fire service, we are prepared for dealing with large-scale or major incidents in the capital.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Capital Accounting

To ensure that all relevant information is collated and to draft the capital and lease sections of the annual financial statements for Chief Financial Officer review within deadlines.
Report on and discuss contentious and highly complex lease and capital Trust-wide issues with Trust Board Officers and senior managers, such as the delivery of performance against capital targets and recommend and implement strategies to recover and maintain performance.
Provide strategic advice on highly complex business issues in relation to the development of business areas to assist managers to achieve lasting benefits for the organisation.
Provide senior level support to business area Directors in developing and monitoring progress on highly complex business cases and project planning and approval documentation to ensure costs and benefits are fully understood, and decisions on new initiatives are taken with full knowledge of the financial implications.
The post holder will present complex information and undertake powerful presentations at business meetings.
Review, develop and continually improve reporting packs for forecasting and planning, CIP, projects and business change initiatives provided to the board.
Provide direction and influence business area Directors to cost effectively and deliver Trust strategic objectives.

In Year Reporting

To manage the monthly capital and lease reporting and forecasting process through the production and distribution of finance system generated reports.
Ensure that all lease and capital nominal ledger accounts are properly reconciled – including the FAR and Lease Register to GL - on a monthly basis.
To ensure that the capital and lease annual and longer term plans, forecasts and NHS England monitoring returns and internal reports are completed by the due dates.
To act as a Trust reference point on capital and lease matters, building and maintaining own knowledge and expertise, interpret advice and promote best practice within the Trust.

Systems and Procedures Development

To ensure that audit recommendations are complied with and to use them to improve controls in other accounting areas.
To lead on improving the effectiveness and utilisation of the lease and capital asset register, and all accounting systems in relevant areas.
To effect a system of continuous process review and improvement.
To ensure that financial procedures are fully documented and developed in accordance with the current accounting standards.
Responsible for the development of financial policies and procedures.

Organisational Issues

Awareness of the Trust’s agreed vision, values and broad organisational goals.
To contribute towards the development of the Trust wide financial strategy and input into the development of all trust wide policies with a financial impact.

People and Managerial Functions

To manage a team including the application of sickness and absence reporting, disciplinary and other personnel policies of the Directorate and Trust and to lend support in the pursuit of their Personal Development Plan and appraisal.

Financial and Physical Resources

Responsible for maintaining robust financial processes and controls to ensure efficient and effective maintenance and management of the Trust's capital and lease assets and maintaining the integrity of the Trust's assets register and non-current assets
Contribute towards the development of financial strategies to deliver capital targets. This requires the post holder to provide expert advice on how to identify opportunities and deliver change and improve services within the allocated cash and capital resource availability. This will include development of 3 year capital plan for inclusion in the Trust's Business Plan.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

CCAB recognised accountancy qualification
Master’s degree or equivalent

Experience

Essential criteria

Capital and Lease Accounting
Experience of monthly reporting cycles and population of month end reports

Knowledge

Essential criteria

Ability to use databases, analyse highly complex data, diagnose problems, identify solutions and undertake business case benefits analysis
Logical thinker with sound analytical skills, able to deal with large volumes of complex data and perform highly complex analysis of financial data
Ability make judgements/decisions in complex situations and use professional judgement to ensure the best outcome for the Trus

London Ambulance Service NHS Trust is a member of the Business Disability Forum and is a Disability Confident Committed Employer.

In addition to the basic salary for all Agenda for Change posts, London Ambulance Service NHS Trust in line with the NHS Agenda for Change provides 15% or 20% High Cost Area Supplement (HCAS) dependant on the location of your role. The supplement is subject to minimum and maximum payment.

High Cost Area Supplement (HCAS) for part time employee will be based on the part time salary.

Please note, the selection processes at London Ambulance Service are in place to ensure we recruit candidates with the right skills and values, please be advised that the use of AI in applications is monitored. We remain vigilant against candidates who misuse these tools to generate an application that doesn’t accurately reflect their skills, and you will be required to declare on your application if AI has been used before submitting your application.

Correspondence regarding an application will be done via email to all job applicants. Please ensure you provide a current e-mail address on the job application form and please check your email inbox regularly.

If you are successful at interview and offered employment, your personal details will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

Pre-employment checks will be required for all applicants who are issued with a conditional offer of employment. This includes Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) checks as required for the post and registration with the DBS update service. Documents presented for the purpose of Identity Checks will be verified for authenticity via an ID Scanner. The security features to be checked include machine readable zone, ultra violet image and infra-red image.

The London Ambulance Service NHS Trust reserves the right to close adverts before the published closing date due to high volumes of applications received.

If you do not hear back from us within four weeks of the advert closing date, please assume that you have not been successful at the shortlisting stage.