Finance and Data Officer

About the Service

The post holder will work closely with service managers, commissioners and the Corporate Finance team to ensure financial sustainability, compliance, and value for money in the delivery of the Inclusion and Belonging Service.

About the Role

As part of this role, you will lead on high-quality financial analysis and planning, to contribute to robust budget development and financial input into the service's culture of continuous improvement.

This is a public/customer-facing role, where the statutory English language requirement for public sector workers applies.

This position will be subject to an enhanced criminal record disclosure check.

Your main areas of work will include:

• Requisitions, Purchasing & Payments
• Supplier Due Diligence & Compliance
• Financial Monitoring & Budgetary Control
• Crisis & Care and Payments
• Grant Funding, Reporting & Income Forecasting
• Education & Partner Payments
• Contributing towards Data Management & Government Returns
• Homes for Ukraine Host Payments & Record Keeping
• Other finance and data related projects in accordance with the service evolution and grade.

Working arrangements:

This is a 2-year fixed-term, full-time position with a hybrid working model.

Office base: New County Hall, Truro

We work flexibly to most effectively support the people, services and organisations that under the remit of Inclusion and Belonging Service. 

There is a requirement to work in a variety of locations and settings, including at home, in the office, site visits and community settings.

 What you’ll need to succeed:

• A recognised undergraduate degree (Level 6) or equivalent qualification in a relevant subject area. 
• Equivalent qualifications may include: 

-A higher education diploma or certificate at an equivalent level

-Significant professional experience demonstrating knowledge and capability at degree level

• Advanced Excel skills, which will form part of the assessment for shortlisted candidates.
• Able to work sensitively and respectfully in a trauma informed service supporting vulnerable people and displaced families.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively with colleagues to deliver service objectives, alongside the confidence and judgement to work independently, prioritise tasks, and use own initiative to resolve issues.
• Proactive and solution‑focused, with a willingness to learn and adapt to changing government guidance, service demand and changing priorities
• Methodical, reliable, and accountable, with a high level of professional integrity
• Knowledge of local authority financial procedures, including requisitioning, purchase orders, invoice processing, BACS payments, and budget monitoring
• Understanding of financial controls, audit requirements, and the importance of maintaining clear and accurate audit trails
• Knowledge of government funded resettlement schemes, including the need for compliance, eligibility checking, and evidence retention
• Working knowledge of financial monitoring and reporting, including reviewing income and expenditure reports, identifying discrepancies, and escalating issues appropriately. 
• Ability to maintain accurate, well‑structured datasets across multiple trackers and systems, ensuring consistency between finance, casework, service user and statutory reporting data.
• Skilled in validating data, identifying gaps, duplicates, or inconsistencies, and taking corrective action to maintain data integrity.
• Ability to analyse financial and service data to identify trends, variances, anomalies, and risks, and to explain findings clearly to managers and non‑technical colleagues. Which will form part of the assessment for shortlisted candidates.

Please read the role profile for the full details of this role attached below in this advert

What you’ll get in return:

Cornwall Council’s ambition is to be an employer of choice, a high performing Council and a learning organisation. We commit to providing a reward and benefits package to attract, motivate and reward our employees. We offer a range of flexible working options to our staff. This helps provide our employees with a greater work/life balance. Whilst still ensuring that service needs are met.

Our core employee rewards and benefits include:

·         a competitive salary.

·         a defined benefit pension scheme, based on your career average earnings. This includes the option for extra voluntary contributions

·         a generous annual leave entitlement with the potential to purchase additional leave.

·         A national award-winning employee health and wellbeing programme

·         Employee benefits scheme giving employees access to a wide range of discounts to local and national goods and services.

Additional Information:

Cornwall Council is unable to offer visa sponsorship or transfer existing sponsorship for this role.

The full role profile is attached here

We recommend saving a copy of this to refer to if you are invited to an interview.

For more information or an informal chat about the role please contact: [email protected] 

Please attach a supporting statement to your application, you can add your Education & Qualifications details manually using the application form timeline or you can upload your CV.

Remember to demonstrate why you are suitable against each of the points marked as ‘Application’ on the Role Profile using examples from your experience or transferable skills. This might be through qualifications or descriptive examples from your work / personal experience, which clearly illustrates what you did and the effect it had.

Guidance on how to complete your application can be found here – The application process.

We recognise that you may choose to use AI tools when preparing your application. We ask that any information you include is an accurate reflection of your own skills, knowledge, experience and achievements. You may be asked to discuss the examples and evidence you provide during the selection process.

We may adapt our shortlisting approach where we receive a high volume of applications. Any shortlisting decisions will be based on the information provided in your application and the essential requirements of the role.

Please note that applications cannot be edited after they have been submitted, please contact [email protected] if you have any queries or require assistance with your application.

Existing employees must apply using their Cornwall Council email address through the Opportunity Marketplace on Oracle.