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Job summary

The Head of Financial Planning is a senior finance leadership role. You are responsible for leading the CPS's strategic financial planning activities and ensuring resources are aligned to organisational priorities, operational demands and long-term sustainability. You provide high-quality financial analysis, insight and advice to senior stakeholders, supporting effective decision-making on complex financial, workforce and strategic issues.

Working closely with the Head of Strategic Finance, you lead the development of the Medium Term Financial Plan and support Spending Reviews, fiscal events and engagement with HM Treasury. You are responsible for assessing the financial implications of policy, legislative and business change initiatives, ensuring risks, opportunities and resource requirements are understood and reflected in planning decisions.

The Crown Prosecution Service is based in England and Wales. If you’re applying for this role and live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you must let us know when accepting this offer as you need permission to work from your home address if hybrid working is part of your role. There’s no guarantee that we will grant this approval.

You must be aged 18 or over at the point of starting in this role. The expected start date is approximately 8–12 weeks after the application closing date. Candidates are expected to commence employment as soon as possible following the expiry of their notice period. Requests for significantly later start dates may not be accommodated.

As part of this role, you are expected to undertake direct line management responsibilities.

This role involves occasional travel to other CPS offices.

Job description

Your roles and responsibilities include:

• Leading the CPS medium-term financial planning process, ensuring resources are aligned to strategic priorities and future demand.
• Providing strategic financial advice, analysis and insight to senior leaders, supporting key business and investment decisions.
• Leading workforce, scenario and financial modelling to assess risks, opportunities and resource requirements.
• Supporting Spending Reviews, fiscal events and HM Treasury engagement, including budget negotiations and resource allocations.
• Driving continuous improvement in financial planning processes, systems and governance, ensuring alignment with government best practice.
• Leading and developing the Financial Planning team while building financial capability and understanding across the wider organisation.

A full copy of the job description is attached.

Person specification

To be eligible to apply, you need to have:

• Full CCAB / CIMA accountancy qualification, or equivalent qualification in economics with strong technical accounting skills.
• Experience of financial modelling.
• Experience of financial planning and budgeting.
• The ability to explain complex financials to a broad base of recipients.
• The ability to lead and influence a collaborative approach, objectively considering a number of options and scenarios through multiple lenses, in order to achieve desired outcomes with a strong sense of continuous

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions
• Working Together

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £58,330, Crown Prosecution Service contributes £16,898 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

Join the Crown Prosecution Service and find your purpose.

The Crown Prosecution Service is passionate about ensuring that we're a top performing organisation and a great place to work. We're a committed equal opportunities employer, creating a culture where you can bring your whole self to work, and individuality is truly appreciated.

This culture of inclusion is underpinned by our staff networks covering disability, faith and belief, LGBTQI+, race, social mobility alongside our mental health first aiders programme and wellbeing sessions.

The Crown Prosecution Service commits to offer its employees the following experience.

• You can do impactful, purposeful work that’s making a difference to your local communities.
• You are able to learn and grow, with access to the right opportunities and resources.
• We care about your wellbeing.
• We want you to feel valued, trusted and included.

We also offer the following range of benefits:

• Civil Service contributory pension of up to 28.9%
• 25 days’ leave, increasing to 30 days after 5 years
• £350 each year to spend on personal development
• lawyer training programme for all new prosecutors
• an extra privilege day to mark the King's birthday
• competitive maternity, paternity and parental leave
• flexible working including flexitime, and a family friendly approach to work
• Cycle2Work scheme, employee savings.

Diversity at the Crown Prosecution Service is about inclusion, embracing differences and ensuring our workforce truly reflects the communities we serve. We want you to feel that you belong and can thrive, whatever your background, identity or culture. As a Disability Confident employer, we're happy to support requests for reasonable adjustments and improve your recruitment experience. If you'd like any reasonable adjustments made to our recruitment process, let us know within your application or contact Calum.Chisholm@cps.gov.uk

We want to ensure our employees can thrive at work and home and offer a range of support to achieve a balance. This includes flexibility of working hours, flexibility to support caring responsibilities and a flexible approach to deployment. We offer a hybrid working policy. You must spend at least 40% of your contracted hours over a four-week period at court, in an office or another official workplace depending on business need and the kind of work you're doing.

The Crown Prosecution Service also has a range of development programmes to support all aspiring, new and experienced managers with developing the skills, behaviours and knowledge to build their confidence and capability. Our Manager Induction Programme is mandatory for all newly appointed managers. This is a fantastic opportunity to support all our new Crown Prosecution Service managers with the tools required to perform effectively in their roles.

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 Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

Recruitment process

The recruitment process consists of an online test, online application, interview and assessment. The interview and assessment are expected to take place from the 7th-9th of September.

Your interview takes place online through Microsoft Teams. A member of our recruitment team will be in touch with guidance. If you have any queries about this, contact Calum.Chisholm@cps.gov.uk

You should keep these dates free or notify us if you're not available. We'll make every effort to accommodate your date preferences but we can't guarantee it.

Online tests

Before submitting your application, you’re invited to complete an online numerical reasoning test. You must successfully complete the test to progress to the next stage. Please complete the online test as soon as possible – we recommend within 24-48 hours. The closing date for the test is 10th August at 23:55.

We send you an invitation to take the test and provide full instructions about how to complete it. The test can’t be taken on mobile phones or tablets.

For more guidance about the online Civil Service tests, please see the GOV.UK website: Civil Service online tests - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Behaviours

You are asked to complete a statement of no more than 250 words for each of the following behaviours, setting out how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience match the specified behaviours and requirements:

1. Seeing the bigger picture
2. Changing and improving
3. Making effective decisions
4. Working together

You also need to demonstrate the Crown Prosecution Service or Civil Service values.

The panel has the right to assess the lead behaviour ‘Seeing the bigger picture’ first. If the standard on this behaviour isn’t met, the other behaviours won’t be considered and your application won’t progress. The panel also has the right to raise the minimum standard pass mark. The panel may also refer to the lead behaviour at the interview stage to determine merit order.

CV

Please upload an up-to-date CV which should include:

• three years’ employment and/or academic history
• skills and experience
• achievements
• qualifications.

You need to attach your CV as an anonymised document of no more than two A4 pages, to provide the panel with an insight into your work history and experience. We ask that you do not provide personal details which could identify you like name, age, home address.

It’s your responsibility to provide the specified application information in the requested format to ensure that you’re considered for the post.

If you’re unable to cover three years through employment and/or academic history, you need to provide a character reference for clearance purposes. The reference will be required at onboarding if you’re offered the role.

Your CV will be used to assess the following experience/technical skills required for this role:

• Full CCAB / CIMA accountancy qualification, or equivalent qualification in economics with strong technical accounting skills.
• Experience of financial modelling.
• Experience of financial planning and budgeting.
• Ability to explain complex financials to a broad base of recipients.
• Ability to lead and influence a collaborative approach, objectively considering a number of options and scenarios through multiple lenses, in order to achieve desired outcomes with a strong sense of continuous

Assessment

We ask you to complete an assessment as part of the recruitment process for this role. We will provide details of this three days prior to your interview.

Interview

We use behaviours to help us understand your experience, to see if you're a good fit for the role. You are assessed against Grade 7 in the Civil Service success profiles behaviours framework. We are assessing 4 behaviours at interview stage:

1. Seeing the bigger picture
2. Making effective decisions
3. Communicating and influencing
4. Working together

Essential Experience/Technical Skills - assessed at interview and assessment

Strengths

Strengths are tested at interview stage - the strengths tested are not shared before the interview.

Clearance

If successful, you are required to securea Security Check clearance, for which you must have a current valid UK address.

If successfully appointed, we ask you to complete a character enquiry form, nationality and immigration questionnaire and a national security vetting form.

The job you’re applying for is covered by Article 3(a) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975, consequently Section 4(2) of that Act doesn’t apply.You’re required to disclose all previous convictions and cautions including spent convictions. Failing to make a full declaration will result in withdrawing your offer of employment if our checks reveal convictions that haven’t been disclosed.

Reserve list

If you're recommended by the selection panel but not appointed to the current vacancy, you’re put on a reserve list for 12 months. You may be offered another Head of Financial Planning post in the CPS if a vacancy comes up during this period. We may also approach candidates on the waiting list to fill other roles that require similar knowledge and experience.

Fraud check

The Crown Prosecution Service provides a Fair Processing Notice to all new applicants after they’ve been successful at interview. These candidates are informed that, as one aspect of pre-employment screening, their personal details – name, National Insurance number and date of birth – are checked against the Internal Fraud Database. We won't employ anyone included on the database unless they can demonstrate exceptional circumstances.

The Strategic Resourcing team in the Crown Prosecution Service will, on behalf of the vacancy holder, inform applicants when they are refused employment because of their inclusion in the Internal Fraud Database.

Civil Service Commission

If you’re dissatisfied with the recruitment process and wish to make a complaint, please contact Strategic.Resourcing@cps.gov.uk with your concerns.

If you remain dissatisfied and wish to make a further complaint, please click on the following link to the Civil Service Commission complaints page Recruitment Complaints - Civil Service Commission

Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles can be found at https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/

Details of the Civil Service Nationality Rules are located at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

Candidates are subject to UK immigration requirements. For the most up-to-date information on the requirements of working in the UK, please go to the UK Visas and Immigration website at https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas

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.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 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 : Calum Chisholm
• Email : Calum.Chisholm@cps.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : strategic.resourcing@cps.gov.uk

Attachments

CPS Terms and Conditions Opens in new window (docx, 255kB)NEW CPS Personal Statement Guidance 2023 Opens in new window (docx, 269kB)Head of Financial Planning Opens in new window (docx, 40kB)