Finance Support Officer

Job Description

The London Borough of Harrow is seeking a Finance Support Officer to deliver high standards of financial processing, monitoring and data accuracy in support of the Housing Needs service. The role is responsible for the timely and accurate processing of statutory rent payments to more than 550 private landlords each quarter under the Private Sector Leasing scheme, as well as the monthly monitoring and payment of emergency accommodation and bed and breakfast invoices with a value of approximately £250,000 per month. The post holder will complete detailed checks of all invoices received from emergency accommodation suppliers, ensure accurate goods receipting, maintain up‑to‑date records and spreadsheets, and confirm that all payments align with data held within HPA2.

The Finance Support Officer will also raise debtor and sundry invoices, purchase orders and cheques in line with the Council’s financial procedures, and extract financial data from a range of databases to support statutory and non‑statutory returns to government departments and partner agencies. A key responsibility of the role is the timely creation of rent accounts for Private Sector Leasing and Paid Accommodation Properties, ensuring strict timescales are met to minimise lost rental income.

Key tasks for the Finance Support Officer will be to raise invoices for emergency accommodation customers who have a shortfall in their rent and to manually update their rent accounts, to work closely with the rent team to effectively monitor the customers rent arrears.

An important objective of the post is to ensure that financial and statistical information is accurately maintained to support the production of robust reports on Housing Needs expenditure by category. These reports are used to inform service planning, validate strategies, identify savings opportunities, support performance management and respond to Freedom of Information requests, contributing to effective decision‑making and sound financial governance across the service.

The successful candidate will have:

• Must have a clear understanding of the diverse nature of Harrow’s communities and the implications for strategy and performance development.
• Experience of accounting practices, knowledge of financial activities in the public sector and operating financial software preferably D365.
• Comprehensive IT skills to produce up-to-date, accurate documents, reports, statistics by interrogating databases.
• Good level of numeracy/arithmetic skills. Good oral and written skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a team.
• Good organisation skills to ensure accurate storage, maintenance and retrieval of information.
• Excellent in the use of MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
• Excellent written and communication skills.

For more information, please refer to the Role Profile/Selection Criteria

About us

Harrow Council is the 12th largest London borough and one of the most culturally diverse local authorities in the UK, making it a great place to live, work and visit with a range of cultures, religions and opinions that come together to produce high achieving schools and a close and friendly community. Located 10 miles from the city centre and just 13 minutes to Euston from Harrow & Wealdstone station there are great transport links via the Metropolitan Line, Watford DC Line and national rail service. It is easily accessible to the M1, M25 and A406.

Other information

Support for candidates visit:Harrow.gov.uk Our behavioural indicators roles below G11 and above G11 Here at Harrow Council, the vision is one of 'Working together to make a difference for Harrow' Please click here to view Harrow Council's benefits

Important Note

To deliver our commitment to equality of opportunity in service provision, all staff are expected to promote equality in the workplace and in the services the Council delivers. All sections of the population will have equal access to jobs at the London Borough of Harrow. No applicant or employee will receive less favourable treatment because of age, disability, gender, reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy, or maternity unless a Genuine Occupational Qualification applies. As such, we value diversity and welcome applications from all backgrounds. For further information, please read our equality statement.

As a disability-confident employer, we are committed to making our recruitment practices barrier-free and accessible to everyone. This includes reasonably adjusting the recruitment process for those with disabilities or long-term health conditions. For further information, please contact us at resourcing@harrow.gov.uk

London Borough of Harrow is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Harrow operates stringent, safer recruitment procedures.

Due to the high number of applications received for some posts, we may close vacancies before the stated closing date if sufficient applications are received. Therefore, please apply as soon as possible.

Harrow redeployees will be given priority consideration.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, any your data protection rights, can be found by visiting www.cifas.org.uk/fpn