Finance and Administration Co-ordinator - Children's Social Care

This position has been classed as an anywhere worker but has an expectation that for the first few months the successful candidate will attend the office, in Chelmsford, 4 days in 5 while getting up to speed with the job but following that only 2 days per week in the office will be needed, with the remaining time allowing for remote working if desired. Working Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5:00pm., The role of the Finance and Administration Co-ordinator is to provide up to date financial information on children's care packages to the Quadrant Director of Local Delivery, Children with Disabilities Service Manager and the Children and Families finance team. Working collaboratively with social care and finance colleagues the role will ensure packages of support agreed at forum/panel are accurately recorded, set up correctly on systems, monitored and reconciled. This activity contributes to the monthly budget outturn for the service.,

• As active member of quadrant panels and forums provide budget oversight on social care support packages discussed. Ensure decisions are accurately recorded both for case recording, auditory and budgetary purposes.


• Responsible for actioning financial placement decisions made at panel/forum (i.e., setting up / amending direct payments, creating and overseeing purchase orders to care providers/placements and recharges to Health and Education via invoicing and journal transfers).


• Provide robust analysis and forecasting on current and future spend to local Director, Service Manager and finance colleagues and other Stakeholders as requested, including FOI requests.


• Timely reporting and reconciliation of financial expenditure to support the monthly budget outturn, following up on queries as necessary.


• Knowledge of legislative and policy funding guidance applicable within social care settings.


• Liaising with Social Workers to ensure packages of support are correctly in place to support families.


• Monitoring of direct payment accounts to ensure unused surplus funds are returned to ECC.


• Work collaboratively with the wider Children and Families function and finance to ensure budget recovery and savings exercises are progressed to maximise delivery and commissioning opportunities.


• Point of contact within the quadrant to support financial queries (from Social Workers, providers, families, and other internal and external services).


• Work collaboratively with other quadrant Resource Coordinators to ensure consistency, support, and cover, thus providing a seamless countywide service.
  
  Educated to Level 3 (A' Level or equivalent) or the equivalent by experience, with extensive knowledge of working with different IT (advanced Microsoft Excel is essential) and financial systems and processes within a business environment.


• Experience of recording and monitoring financial information within databases to support operational decision making and experience of performing critical analysis to identify errors quickly and offer speedy and customer focussed solutions.


• Previous Minute talking experience. Note: This will include minuting details of meetings linked to Social Care for Children i.e., children being placed into care so a willingness to work with this type of subject matter is essential.


• The role requires attention to detail with the ability to compile and work with statistics to produce accurate reports.


Desirable:

• Proven track record of building working relationships with partner organisations and external agencies.


• Knowledge of legislative and policy funding guidance applicable within Social Care settings.


• Excellent working knowledge of Microsoft Office (specifically Microsoft Excel), ideally previous experience of using Oracle and / or the ability to learn new systems.


• Strong communication skills with proven ability to translate information/data in a clear way., Accuracy and attention to detail are key attributes to this role, as is the ability to analyse data and identify any trends which might further support the management of the budget.
  
  As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service