Job Description

The British Council builds connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language.

We work in two ways - directly with individuals to transform their lives, and with governments and partners to make a bigger difference for the longer term, creating benefit for millions of people all over the world. We help young people to gain the skills, confidence and connections they are looking for to realise their potential and to participate in strong and inclusive communities. We support them to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications. Our work in arts and culture stimulates creative expression and exchange and nurtures creative enterprise. We connect the best of the UK with the world and the best of the world with the UK.

These connections lead to an understanding of each other\'s strengths and of the challenges and values that we share. This builds trust between people in the UK and other nations which endures even when official relations may be strained. We work on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2019-20 we connected with 80 million people directly and with 791 million overall, including online and through our broadcasts and publications.

Purpose of Role:

Reporting to the Director of FP&A Cultural Engagement, the role will focus on partnering with the business to deliver high quality financial planning and analysis to the SBU. There is a strong emphasis on partnering with directors and managers of the business areas to provide consistent, timely, accurate and relevant financial information, interpretation of results and decision support aligned to strategic business objectives.

The role-holder will be one of number of peers and analysts within the UK Finance team and Regional finance teams who have a similar skill-set and responsibilities. The sharing of knowledge and innovation between the \xe2\x80\x9cFP&A\xe2\x80\x9d team is key to helping the Council embrace the matrix of SBU / Region management and becoming more commercially effective. This team will support and develop team members and be mutually supportive in terms of developing the \xe2\x80\x9ctalent-pool\xe2\x80\x9d to become more knowledgeable about British Council strategy.

The role-holder will be a person with strong knowledge of large international organisations with multiple product / service / geographic business channels and the demands of an organisation that is changing in terms of building a larger proportion of income from commercial trading.

The role-holder will help British Council business leaders focus on cost management, business development, efficiency improvements, investments, service and process quality and provide advice on how to reinvest surpluses in support of its purpose. The role-holder will integrate their activities with and support the aims of the Global Continuous Improvement plan and contribute to achieving successful outcomes.

Main Accountabilities:

Key accountabilities:

• Provide a comprehensive financial planning and forecasting service to identified recipients of financial information in the UK, regions and externally. This role will co-ordinate delivery of the global SBU budgets and forecast activity and support multi-year planning. Ensure that processes fit the needs of various stakeholders and finance/planning deliverables
• Through leadership demonstrate and promote best practice and standards for business partnering to support commercial growth, cost-management in both UK and regions , thereby enabling more accurate budgeting and forecasting globally for CE
• Set planning and forecasting timetables for the Global SBU to ensure processes meet the needs and timelines of stakeholders and fit with other finance/planning deliverables at both group and regional level.
• Work with the Head of Planning - Group, to ensure compliance with the planning process and help develop standard reports that meet the requirements for KPI reporting. Ensure that timelines, guidance and month end reports are clear, accurate and easily understood.
• Continuous improvement of planning, forecasting, reporting and commentary collection processes for CE
• Develop the SBU\'s multi-year planning and reporting to enable programmes to be assessed across their life span.
• Work with Regional Finance teams and Regional CE Operations, to provide financial guidance and support for SBU activities in region and help to establish effective matrix working across the Council
• Deliver clear and accurate Management Information (MI) reporting for the global CE business, that can be analysed in a manner that is appropriate for the business and external stakeholders. Develop useful and clear KPI reporting as part of the current MI pack. Initially this is achieved using Bex Analyser but the rollout of Power BI may impact this. A process of continuous improvement should be adopted.
• Promote and implement high standards of data governance, ensuring these reflect best practice. Work to ensure that \'one version of the truth\' is maintained for the CE figures - agreeing to the central MI packs.

• Provide support to the Director of FP&A Cultural Engagement to develop and maintain the SBU\'s 3-5 year financial plans and scenario analysis. Co-ordinating this across the Global SBU.
• Lead the global CE cashflow reporting & analysis process on a monthly basis, ensuring that clear information and recommendations are available for signoff by the Director of Cultural Engagement on a quarterly basis
• Lead on all aspects of financial management of the Non-Business Delivery costs for Global SBU Management in CE Provide useful information and promote self-service by educating teams to make use of existing MI reporting and SAP.
• Ensure all variances are understood and the information is available to inform future planning and forecasting decisions.
• Lead on the rolling reforecast process for UK submissions to corporate finance.
• Work closely with the UK Finance Control team to ensure and support delivery of improved quality of financial records/underlying data structures and balance sheet controls for the UK SBU.

Leadership & management

• Provide a working environment in which staff can develop their skills through agreed career progression paths and training and mentoring. This will enable a greater degree of service flexibility and coverage and benefit those in the team in terms of skills and experience acquired.
• Develop the team to ensure knowledge of all aspects of British Council Operations (SBU / Regional perspective) and enable / encourage team member career progression through innovation, cross-skilling and helping the British Council to improve its commercial awareness and financial performance
• Promote the work of Cultural Engagement FP&A and support the implementation of good practice throughout the organisation.
• Champion ideas for performance improvement; supporting colleagues to understand and engage with priorities and progress
• Ensure customer / client needs and perspectives are reflected in the behaviours and focus of the CE FP&A team
• Ensure that continuous development, learning and improvement is actively embedded into the practice of the CE FP&A team
• Ensure the CE FP&A team proactively seek to understand the interdependencies and connections their work has with other functions and teams within finance, CE and the wider organisation

Continuous Improvement

• Support Director of FP&A Cultural Engagement in identifying and implementing continual improvements to planning services, aligning business needs and introducing innovations to the process taken from external best-practice. Be the SBU lead on key improvement programmes as required (including development of planning workbooks, Power BI and KPI reporting)
• Be a champion of continuous improvement, providing critical input to relevant user groups and leading on programme streams as required.
• Work with GCBS operations (Global Consulting Group) and across the wider finance community to support the development of an effective workforce planning tool.
• Develop strong working relationship with the Shared Service Centres, developing the teams understanding of the SBU\'s work and identifying additional aspects of work that could be supported from there.

Role specific knowledge and experience

Minimum/essential

• Qualified accountant with proven experience of successfully managing and delivering similar roles.
• Operating in international and multi-cultural organisations
• Demonstrable understanding of financial planning, monitoring and reporting process
• Interpersonal, communication and influencing skills
• Identification and delivery of performance improvements
• Business partnering
• Shared Services Operations

Further Information

Pay Band - 9 / SMPS

Contract Type - Fix term contract for 18 months

Locations - London, United Kingdom

Requirements - Candidates must have the legal right to work in UK.

Role Benefits

• Up to \xc2\xa355,699 yearly gross plus \xc2\xa33,300 London Market Allowance yearly gross

• 32 days annual leave, in addition to public holidays

• 6 days volunteering leave

• Career average defined benefit pension scheme

And an unrivalled Opportunity for you to get to use all the experience you\'ve built up working in leading global organisations to support us in building trust across the world!

Closing Date - 7th of January 2024

A connected and trusted UK in a more connected and trusted world.

Equality , Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Statement

The British Council is committed to policies and practices of equality, diversity and inclusion across everything we do. We support all staff to make sure their behaviour is consistent with this commitment. We want to address under representation and encourage applicants from under-represented groups, in particular, but not exclusively, on grounds of ethnicity and disability. All disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria are guaranteed an interview and we have Disability Confident Employer Status. We welcome discussions about specific requirements or adjustments to enable participation and engagement in our work and activities.

The British Council is committed to safeguarding children, young people and adults who we work with.

We believe that all children and adults everywhere in the world deserve to live in safe environments and have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in article 19, UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) 1989.

Appointment to positions where there is direct involvement with vulnerable groups will be dependent on thorough checks being completed; these will include qualification checks, reference checks, identity & criminal record checks in line with legal requirements and with the British Council\'s Safeguarding policies for Adults and Children.

If you have any problems with your application please email

Please note: Applications to this role can only be considered when made through the Apply section of our careers website. Our \'ASK HR\' email is only to be used in case of a technical issue encountered when applying through the careers website. Emails with supporting statements and CV/Resumes sent to this email address will not be reviewed and will be deleted.

British Council