Scottish Government Hiring for Finance Officer Job at Edinburgh, Scotland Full Time

Would you like a rewarding career in Finance? Do you have experience in ensuring payments are made in time while supporting customers with their queries? If so, we would welcome applications from interested candidates to join our Finance and Procurement Team within Student Award Agency Scotland (SAAS).

SAAS is an executive agency of the Scottish Government and responsible for assessing and paying student awards for Scottish domiciled students in Higher Education throughout the UK. We administer budgets of around £1.4 billion each year, making payments to both educational institutions and over 190,000 students a year. We are committed to recruiting a diverse workforce that is representative of the clients we serve.

More information on SAAS can be found on our website https://www.saas.gov.uk

This role is within the Financial Reporting Team as part of the wider Finance Directorate in SAAS. The team provide a transparent accurate view of finances for the Agency as well as the £1.4 billion administered by SAAS. The team also prepare the annual accounts for SAAS, and the consolidation accounting pack for Scottish Government. We also have a significant role in providing assurance and ratification of payments leaving the agency.

SAAS is going through an exciting digital improvement and as is the finance function in SG, this role will be exposed to best practice in terms of finance processes and IT. The finance team has recently had great staff survey results showing it’s a great team to work with. This could be a brilliant step in a rewarding career in finance with potential future opportunities to study accountancy or other qualifications.

Responsibilities:

The Finance Officer is the first point of contact in all payment related queries, this may include liaising with senior colleagues in external bodies to resolve payment issues. This includes Treasury & Banking within Scottish Government and Higher Education Institutions. Other duties include:

• Responsible for processing and payment of Agency and Higher Education Student Support Programme invoices; process, record, investigate and resolve issues with student and institution payments.
• You will monitor enquiry mailboxes within the team and manage responses
• Co-ordinate, process, verify and record data for quarterly tuition fee payments and reports.
• Process manual (one-off) payments, sending CHAPS and foreign payments.
• Raise invoices and manage communications to institutions for fees to be recovered.
• a member of the electronic Payment and Procurement (ePAP) working group

Competencies:

Information Management

Customer Service

Self-Awareness

Team Work

Essential Criteria & Qualifications:

Essential Criteria:

• Use of Excel to record and communicate information accurately.
• Excellent communication skills, both oral and written, including experience of dealing effectively with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders;
• Adaptable and proactive with the ability to prioritise and manage workload to meet tight deadlines;
• An understanding of Finance, Procurement and Banking in a large organisation.

Location: Saughton House, Edinburgh, EH11 3XD

Feedback will only be provided if you attend interview or Assessment.

Minimum time in post:

You will be expected to remain in post for a minimum of three years unless successful at gaining promotion to a higher Band or Grade.

In the event that further posts are required, a reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for up to 12 months.

HOW TO APPLY & ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Additional information:

Important Information Regarding Interviews:

In recognition of ongoing measures and guidance in response to Covid-19, a decision has been taken that all interviews will be conducted in a virtual/remote setting.

All applicants must ensure that they have a suitable space to complete the virtual interview via MS Teams and ensure that Wi-Fi/Broadband capacity will be sufficient to carry both audio and video feeds to undertake the interview.

Scottish Government’s ambition is to be a world leading, diverse employer where people can be themselves at work. We want to help you demonstrate your full potential whatever type of assessment is used. If you require any adjustments to our recruitment process, please let us know via [email protected]

As part of any recruitment process, Scottish Government and associated public bodies collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants and applicants for public appointments.