Finance Business Partner (3361)

Job summary

Are you looking for a role with autonomy and the opportunity to work closely with government colleagues?

We are seeking a motivated finance professional to play a key role in supporting the effective financial management of Higher Education Student Support within the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS). As an Executive Agency operating on behalf of the Scottish Government, SAAS delivers a high volume, high impact service within a complex policy and governance environment. As the Finance Business Partner, you will contribute to ensuring that public funds are managed responsibly, transparently, and in accordance with Scottish Government financial frameworks.

This role sits within the Business Partnering Team in the Finance Directorate and provides broad experience across budgeting, forecasting, financial analysis and financial accounting. You will support key planning and reporting cycles, produce high‑quality financial information, and provide clear, evidence‑based analysis to inform operational and strategic decisions. Working closely with colleagues across SAAS and the Scottish Government, the role requires strong analytical skills, effective communication, and sound professional judgement, and offers a high degree of autonomy, opportunities for professional development, and the chance to contribute to robust financial stewardship across a critical national service.

Job description

• Provision of high quality monthly financial reports to required timescales, providing accurate, relevant and timely management information.
• Provide financial advice and assistance to stakeholders, and build and maintain effective working relationships with business areas including with the wider Scottish Government.
• Contribute to the completion and quality assurance of input to corporate financial exercises in accordance with corporate timetable. Ensuring working papers provide a full audit trail and are retained and easily accessible during the audit process.
• Providing assistance in updating the financial ledger for example performing monthly reconciliation’s and preparing and processing journal entries.
• Review budget monitoring returns, undertake the first check of forecasts, year to date actual, and budget data, and ensure that explanations make sense and support the figures, challenging areas where more explanation is required.
• Assisting in the maintenance of overall financial control, to ensure the integrity of financial data on the ledger and the accuracy of the supporting systems and records.
• Ensuring adequate financial controls and clear audit trails are in place around accounting and reporting processes.
• Working flexibly across the team and shifting direction quickly to meet changing priorities and demands.
• Management of staff across the finance function.
• Leading the annual accounts and audit processes.

Person specification

Technical / Professional Skills:

• Budgeting, Forecasting and Costing - Practitioner
• Government finance - Working
• International Accounting Standards - Working

You can find out more about the skills required here
Experience:

1. Technical financial accounting skills and ability to communicate financial information clearly and succinctly to a wide range of audiences, including to non-finance colleagues.
2. Strong analytical skills with the ability to use information from multiple sources to inform decision making and identify areas for improvement.
3. Working collaboratively to support change and build effective relationships, trust and credibility with a range of stakeholders.

Qualifications

You must be fully CCAB (or equivalent) qualified with up to date CPD and relevant finance experience.

Technical skills

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

• Budgeting, Forecasting and Costing - Practitioner
• Government finance - Working
• International Accounting Standards - Working

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £49,401, Scottish Government contributes £14,311 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

Expected Timeline: (subject to change)

Interview - w/c 4 May 2026
Location - In person

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

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 (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).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) (opens in a new window)
• 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 (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window).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.

Diversity and Inclusion

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

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) 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 : Simon Norbury
• Email : Simon.Norbury@gov.scot

Recruitment team

• Email : scottishgovernmentrecruitment@gov.scot