Rutherford Cross is delighted to be retained to support the Wheatley Group in their appointment of a Finance Manager for its Lowther Homes and YourPlace subsidiaries.

Lowther Homes

Lowther Homes provides quality, affordable homes in great locations across Scotland. Lowther Homes owns or manages more than 1600 homes across 11 local authority areas.

The majority of its mid and full-market rental properties are in Glasgow and Edinburgh, along with properties in Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, South Lanarkshire, East Dunbartonshire, Ayrshire, Inverclyde, Midlothian, East Lothian and West Lothian.

As part of Wheatley Group – Scotland's leading housing, care and property-management group – Lowther works with our partner organisations to deliver an unrivalled combination of services.

YourPlace

YourPlace Property Management delivers excellent services, day in, day out, to almost 30,000 customers across central Scotland. Its role is to act on behalf of you and your neighbours to help you look after your home.

YourPlace is there for its customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you have a repair or factoring issue, its team of factoring specialists are on hand 365 days a year. YourPlace also offer a range of factoring services to keep homes and buildings safe, clean and warm - and backcourts and communities looking great.

The Role

The Finance team provides strategic financial support services to the Group to enable it to achieve its strategic priorities. The post holder will provide an excellent service to our customers across all areas of finance support including but not limited to decision support, management and project reporting, preparation of budgets and forecasts, financial controls external statutory reporting and compliance, taxation, liaison with internal and external customers and stakeholders and any other duties or requirements that are necessary to ensure a smooth running and effective service that meets the needs of all our customers.

Duties are devised into the following categories:

Management Reporting

• Prepare full monthly management reports with commentary which includes income & expenditure, balance sheet and cashflow.
• Preparation of annual budget and quarterly forecasts of income and expenditure, balance sheet and cashflow;
• Regular meetings with budget holders to update on financial performance and discuss appropriate actions
• Provide financial reporting for all projects on a regular and timely basis.
• Ensure controls in place are appropriate and provide assurance that results accurately reflect the business performance e.g. balance sheet reconciliations, discussion of performance with budget holders etc.
• Provision of completed reporting packs for review at a level appropriate for submission to Board or Committee

Decision Support

• Undertake analysis of areas of financial risk, budget variance, business growth or any other financial support required by the Group
• Day to day lead for business planning working closely with the Group Business Planning team to ensure appropriate financial linkages exist across short and long term planning
• Undertaken financial scenario planning and advise budget holders on mitigating actions when dealing with financial variances.
• Design, update and continuously improve the provision of information including appropriate KPIs, benchmarks and trend analysis to support informed decision making in the changing Group environment

Financial Control

• Implement and maintain appropriate financial controls in order to underpin the financial governance and standing orders of the Group and subsidiary companies applicable to all areas of operations
• Applied across both areas of management and financial accounting to ensure accuracy of reported performance

Statutory and Regulatory

• Prepare year end statutory accounts for Group entities
• Liaise with Group auditors and provide backup information as required
• Liaise with Group tax advisors and provide relevant substantiating backup information as required
• Prepare regulatory returns for HMRC and the FSA which complies with legal and statutory regulations
• Review of periodic VAT submissions to HMRC and provide additional information where request and support HMRC visits.
• Provide internal and external audit information which allows assurance to be obtained towards the control environment

Leadership

• Effective line management of team members including absence, disciplinary and performance management
• Conduct regular “My Contribution” meetings
• Employees supported through coaching, learning and development and completion of development plans
• Clear communication to employees of relevant organisational, divisional and team aims and initiatives

Efficiency of Processes

• Value for money delivered on all outputs
• Annual cost reductions and efficiency savings met within workstream

Compliance with Corporate Requirements

• Comply with and implement all Wheatley Group policies and procedures
• Act ethically and with integrity

Organisational Competencies

·       Delighting our customers

·       Achieving excellence

·       Communicating effectively

·       Using professional judgement

·       Taking personal pride

The Finance Manager will be able to demonstrate the following behaviours and competencies:

• Strong leadership and management skills
• Adept at removing the barriers that get in the way of delivering excellent customer service
• Creating an environment of trust
• Ensure two-way dialogue with teams
• Ability to work in a collaborative manner with other team members and other teams in the Group
• Flexible and adaptable approach
• Ability to anticipate future developments and the impact on the service provided and to proactively plan ahead
• Challenges the “status quo” to find creative and innovation solutions for customers
• Good listener
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Ability to ensure that staff are confident using their own initiative
• Self-aware and self-motivated to realise your full potential
• Inspire others to achieve their full potential
• Excellent time management skills
• Computer literate
• Ability to take responsibility for own learning and continuous improvement
• Ability to represent Wheatley Group in a positive and effective manner
• Take responsibility for managing excellent performance results

On offer:

Salary £47,921-£51,353

The bandings are reviewed each year for cost of living increases on top of this– in the past this has been in the region of 1.5-2% per annum.

There are 28 days annual leave and 13 days statutory holidays.

Defined Contribution pension scheme employee contribution 4%, 5% or 6%, employer contribution twice employee’s (ie between 8-12%).

Other benefits include a health plan and season ticket loans etc. 35 hour working week, operating a flexi-time scheme.