Senior Finance Officer at The Wessex Multi-Academy Trust (Head Office)

Senior Finance Officer

Salary: Grade 8 SCP 12-20 (£26,541 – £30,252)

Start date: April 2025; Location: Office based at Wessex House

Wessex Multi Academy Trust currently has a vacancy for a full time Senior Finance Officer. The position is 37 hours per week and is term time only (plus INSET, plus 2 weeks in the holidays). 

The Wessex Multi-Academy Trust is looking to appoint a Senior Finance Officer; to join our central Finance team. Whilst this position is part of the central finance team, the postholder may be required to travel to school sites for meetings.  The postholder will be the nominated finance lead for three schools within the Wessex Multi Academy Trust, the postholder will also have procurement and contract management responsibilities.

We are seeking to appoint an enthusiastic, suitably experienced and qualified individual to take responsibility for:

• ensuring financial regulations are adhered to and controlled, in accordance with Trust policy and DfE.
• advising the Head of School on the short- and medium-term financial status of the school and its commitments on a regular basis.
• developing and maintaining financial and other systems to ensure the quality and accuracy of financial information.
• preparing the financial records of the school for internal and external audit.
• line management of central team finance officers.
• tendering, contracting and managing arrangements for specific goods, services or works, across the Trust.
• carry out specific monitoring activity for all relevant contracted services and ensure that the outcomes from such activity are effectively recorded.

Candidates need to be well organised, have good communication skills and be able work with a high degree of accuracy. They will need to be highly organised, a team player and be happy to use their own initiative and work independently. Experience with finance systems and excel is essential. Due to the nature of the role, the postholder will need to be able to fulfil the travel requirements. 

The Wessex Multi-Academy Trust values the diversity of our workforce and welcomes applications from all sectors of the community.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people; this is a commitment which we expect all staff and volunteers to share. The successful candidate will be required to have a Disclosure and Barring Service check in line with the Governments safer recruitment guidelines.

The pro rata salary shown is based on the number of hours and weeks worked and includes appropriate paid annual leave and bank holiday entitlements.

The salary quoted is the annual salary for the position at the time of advert. The salary will be paid in equal monthly instalments and will be adjusted at the start of employment and again if leaving part way through the school year to ensure the correct salary is received for the work completed in an academic year.

This role is UK based and your Right to Work will need to be established as part of the appointment process.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974. The amendments to the ROA 1974 (Exceptions Order 1975, (2013 and 2020)) provide that when applying for certain jobs and activities, certain spent convictions and cautions are ‘protected’, so they do not need to be disclosed to employers, and if they are disclosed, employers cannot take them into account. The MOJ’s guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975, provides information about which convictions must be declared during job applications and related exceptions and further information about filtering offences can be found in the DBS filtering guide.

Keeping Children Safe in Education

The Wessex Multi-Academy Trust will conduct online searches of shortlisted candidates. This check will be part of a safeguarding check, and the search will purely be based on whether an individual is suitable to work with children. All aspects of social media and internet searches will be conducted. As care must be taken to avoid unconscious bias and any risk of discrimination, a person who will not on the appointment panel will conduct the searches and will only share information if and when findings are relevant and of concern.