Details

Reference number

431691

Salary

£81,000 - £100,000

Successful candidates will be offered the minimum of the pay scale and in some circumstances salary negotiations will be dependent on the demonstration of skills and experience. All our roles come with an excellent benefits’ package, including the generous Civil Service Pension Scheme. Further salary increases depend entirely upon the outcome of our annual pay negotiation with central government. If you are a current Civil Servant transferring to us, your salary will be discussed in line with our pay policies.

A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

GBP

Job grade

SCS Pay Band 1

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

CH - Directorate & CE Office

Type of role

Corporate Finance
Finance
Senior leadership

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time

Number of jobs available

Location
About the job
Benefits
Things you need to know
Apply and further information

Location

Cardiff, Wales, CF14 3UZ

About the job

Job summary

To provide strategic leadership and management of all financial, commercial, and economic activities within the agency, providing expert advice and support to the business at a time of significant organisational change and transformation. The Director of Finance and Commercial is a key member of the Companies House Executive Team, with shared responsibility for leading and developing the organisation. Additionally, they ensure robust financial stewardship, oversee effective governance, and drive value for money in decision-making, enabling the organisation to achieve its objectives in line with public sector best practices and standards.

Companies House offers a flexible and welcoming culture that promotes a healthy work life balance as well as a proactive approach to wellbeing that allows us to be our best at work. We recognise that people are the key to our success so offer a fantastic benefits package including flexible working with no core hours, 30 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays and 1 privilege day as well as enrolment into the Civil Service Pension scheme with a contribution rate averaging 28%.

Find out more about what a great place Companies House is to work

Please note - Companies House cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. Additionally, Security Clearance is an essential requirement (minimum residency criteria is in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years). Please see 'Things you need to know' section below for more information.

Job description

Lead and support the Finance, Commercial, and Economics functions, in their delivery of effective professional services and advice, ensuring organisational compliance with legal requirements, government controls and functional standards, supporting delivery of corporate objectives.
Be a member of the Companies House Board and Executive Team, with shared accountability for leading the development of the agency and the delivery of its objectives. This involves working in close partnership with other executive and non-executive colleagues, collaborating effectively to set and achieve organisational objectives.
Champion visible and inclusive leadership across the agency, inspiring high performance and ensuring the functions have the skills, experience, and capacity to support Companies House’s (CH) objectives.
Serve as: (i) lead Executive for Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, (ii) accountable Executive for risk management and corporate assurance, reporting to the Audit Risk and Assurance Committee, and (iii) Chair of internal committees including Finance and Investment Committee and Commercial Assurance Panel.
Act as corporate guardian for departmental budgets, efficiency targets, and the protection of the Accounting Officer, ensuring compliance with Managing Public Money.

Provide strategic financial guidance to the Chief Executive and Executive Team, based on sound financial planning, analysis and business partnering that supports corporate objectives and enables the business to deliver robust spending review bids and fee reviews.
Promote and sustain effective financial probity, governance, accountability, and internal controls.
Ensure timely delivery of annual report and accounts and other government and departmental reporting.
Continuously improve the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of financial operations and finance systems
Drive value for money (VfM) and evidence-based decision-making across the organisation, ensuring costs, benefits and risks of priority investments and decisions are effectively weighed up.
Enhance the organisations’ commercial acumen and business focus, embedding effective procurement and commercial strategies aligned with best practice.
Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders across government to manage risk and ensure sound financial, commercial and investment decision-making, including representing CH and working collaboratively at all levels of Government.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

Experience

Senior leadership of finance in a complex organisation (ideally public sector)

Delivering strong financial management and value for money

Leading and motivating multi-disciplinary professional teams through change

Strategic planning and influencing at board level

Building and maintaining broad, diverse stakeholder relationships

Developing and delivering the strategic direction of a complex organisation.

Promoting operational and professional excellence

Skills & Abilities

Strong, visible, and inclusive leadership at board level

Strategic analytical and critical thinking

Excellent communication of complex financial concepts

Pragmatic problem solving and business insight

Ability to manage multiple priorities in a demanding environment

Negotiation and influencing skills in complex, ambiguous environments

Sound risk management approaches and judgement.

Influencing strategic planning confidently, clearly, and credibly.

Knowledge & Understanding

Comprehensive knowledge of financial control, reporting, assurance, and performance management

In-depth understanding of Managing Public Money and government functional standards

Knowledge in managing complex, high value and high-risk procurements across a range of categories/sectors, as well as in new and emerging markets.

Understanding of commercial, procurement, and economics functions (in a public sector context)

Qualifications & Training

Full professional accountancy qualification (CCAB, CIMA or equivalent)

Evidence of continuing professional development

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

Leadership
Seeing the Big Picture
Making Effective Decisions
Communicating and Influencing
Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Companies House contributes £23,465 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

We believe that our success is driven by the well-being and satisfaction of our team members at all levels of the organisation. At Companies House we’re committed to providing a comprehensive benefits package that goes beyond the ordinary, ensuring your career journey with us is not only fulfilling, but also rewarding. We pride ourselves on offering a quality work-life balance with our employee wellbeing being central to our working practices.

Head to Our benefits - Working for us - Recruitment (companieshouse.gov.uk) to find out more about the fantastic benefits package we have at Companies House.

We celebrate diversity...

As an equal opportunity employer, we celebrate diversity, being committed to ensuring we’re representative of the citizens we serve and creating an inclusive environment. Everyone in Companies House brings something different, and so will you. To fulfil our commitment to recruiting and attracting diverse talent we welcome applications from underrepresented groups. We also welcome applications from Welsh speakers.

We are proud to be a disability confident leader. Our recruitment process is fully inclusive and we can make adjustments as needed through our process. These could include having an interview buddy, extra time at interviews/assessments and receiving interview questions in advance, to name a few.

If you require any reasonable adjustments at application stage, or if you'd like to discuss any person-centred adjustments, please contact us by emailing recruitmentCH@companieshouse.gov.uk.

Read our 'Applying under the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS)' guide to find out how to successfully complete an application under the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS).

Where will you be working?

You will be aligned to our Cardiff office, where you will be expected to attend on a regular basis. We are currently using a hybrid approach to the way we work which provides opportunities for you to be adaptable in the way you work so that you can achieve a healthy balance between your work and home life. The degree of choice you have will depend on your role and your day-to-day work activities. Your manager will agree regular patterns of attendance with you, however you may be required to make yourself available to attend the office more frequently when required to meet business needs.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles , and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

In your application form we’d like you to:

A CV setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where applicable of budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps
within the last two years
A Statement of Suitability (no more than 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.

Companies House uses a blended interview technique, allowing us to find out more about you. We use the Success Profile framework and at interview we will use Success Profiles assessing the Behaviours listed in the advert and Experience (as detailed in the Essential Criteria)

We’re committed to being diverse and inclusive, so please make your application anonymous by removing all identifying personal information (such as your name and age) from your personal statement.

What will the process look like?

We’ll carry out a shortlist (sift). We may raise the score required at sift stage to progress to interview if we receive a high number of applications.
At shortlist we will choose to take through the highest performing candidates to the next stage. If, after the final stage is completed and roles are unfilled, we will proceed to invite lower scoring candidates to interview.
Successful candidates at shortlist will be invited to assessments (staff engagement exercise, psychometric assessment) and a Fireside Chat and an interview in our Cardiff Office.
There will be an activity as part of the interview - this will be five minute presentation.
We plan to shortlist applications the week commencing 3rd November, with the Assessments and Fireside Chat taking place week commencing 10th November and interviews the week commencing 24th November . Please bear in mind these dates might need to change - we will keep you informed as you move through the recruitment process.
The lead criteria to distinguish between tied candidates will be: LEADERSHIP (CS Behaviour)
A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles.
If after interview you are not found appointable at the advertised grade you may be offered the lower grade role if you are considered to meet the skills, experience and behaviours for the lower level. The benchmark for appointing to the lower grade is set at the start of each campaign. All offers will be made in merit order.

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of recruitment based on fair and open competition with decisions made on the basis of merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.

Security Clearance

The level of security vetting needed is security check To gain security check (SC) level vetting you will need to meet the vetting requirements and have been a UK resident for a minimum of 3 years out of the last 5 years. See our vetting charter .

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Sponsorship

Companies House cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. Companies House holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify. Should you apply for this role and require sponsorship, your application may be rejected, and any provisional offers of employment withdrawn.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check .

See our vetting charter .

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

UK nationals
nationals of the Republic of Ireland
nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles .

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy .

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

Name : Tracey Brown and Katriona Du Preez
Email : tbrown@companieshouse.gov.uk

Recruitment team

Email : recruitmentch@companieshouse.gov.uk

Further information

We welcome applications in Welsh / Rydym yn croesawi ceisiadau yn y Gymraeg. Selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit, on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. In accordance with the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles, our recruitment and selection processes are underpinned by the requirement of appointment on the basis of merit by fair and open competition. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact infopoint@companieshouse.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission .

info@csc.gov.uk

Civil Service Commission, Room G/8, 1 Horse Guards Road SW1A 2HQ

Companies House

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