Senior Finance Officer

Senior Finance Officer

Fixed Term contract, 6 months initially 

Full Time, 37 hours per week

£35,315 to £41,547 per annum

Location: Chelmsford

Working Style: Anywhere worker*

Closing Date: 22nd April 2026 (23:59)

*Please note the working style for this role is an Anywhere worker but will require you to attend the office when required (Team weekly in office day is currently Thursday).

The Role 

This role is located within the Transactional Services Division of ECC’s Finance Directorate. Finance Transactional Services aims to provide a comprehensive financial transactional and support service, maximising new and innovative technology to provide excellent customer service using a multi skilled workforce. 

Senior Finance Officers in Sundry Debt will lead a team to deliver timely and cost-effective income collection across a diverse customer demographic.

With strong experience of Income Collection, excellent leadership, and communication skills with the ability to build strong relationships. Commercial awareness is essential in this role as is the ability to lead change.

To read more about our business area, please visit: Corporate Services

Accountabilities 

• Lead, drive and motivate a team of finance officers, admin and assistants, to deliver debt collection, ensuring exemplary standards and continuous improvement.
• Lead on the delivery of the business plan for debt collection, in support of the wider organisational vision.
• Lead in the identification and clarification of customer needs to deliver process and technology changes, which drive efficiency and value for money.
• Lead in improving financial awareness and capability across the organisation, to promote the culture of empowering budget holders in line with financial regulations.
• Contribute to the production of reports for Income and external customers, to manage organisational performance, maximise income and ensure compliance to Financial Regulations.
• Lead on service improvement projects or programmes to achieve best practice and organisational efficiency.
• Lead in maintaining currency on legislation changes and translating these into local policy and procedure, to identify and review potential changes in technology.
• Working collaboratively across the organisation to ensure a high level of understanding across all Functions, to constructively challenge and influence internal and external partners.
• Lead in identifying, mitigating, managing, and resolving risks to minimise financial impact and loss to the organisation.
• Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

The Experience You Will Bring 

• Educated to RQF level 6 (Bachelor’s degree) or equivalent by experience.
• Strong experience of income collection is essential with experience of sundry debt income highly desirable.
• Evidence of continuing professional development and expert knowledge in relevant professional area.
• Strong experience and good working knowledge of Income systems and demonstrable accounts receivable experience, in a high-volume environment is relevant to the role.
• Ability to interpret complex and varied information and use it to drive continuous improvement.
• Strong leadership skills and behaviours, building and leading a diverse team to achieve shared objectives. Experience of managing cultural and operational change in a complex environment.
• Good level of commercial awareness, with the ability to build effective working relationships at senior level, with internal and external customers, suppliers, and partners.
• Ability to evaluate and support innovative approaches to improving service delivery and value for money, with a strong focus on performance and delivery.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to negotiate with and influence at senior level. 

Dimensions 

Budgetary responsibility (direct or indirect impact): None 

People management (including direct reports): Circa 7 direct reports 

Breadth of role: break down per team 

Income –

• circa £320 million of income
• Wide demographic of customers of sundry debt
• Interaction with senior managers & operational managers across the organisation
• Interaction with external and internal auditors for provision of information to support audit processes
• Interaction with external customers

Why Essex?

As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Covering over 1,420 square miles and serving 1.8 million residents, we’re committed to transformational change and delivering better quality at lower cost. Recognised in the top three of the latest IMPOWER index for productivity, we ensure everyone matters in Everyone's Essex. With flexible working options and a focus on innovation, whether you are looking to develop your career or contribute to the local community, Essex is the ideal place for you. 

In February 2025, Greater Essex was accepted onto the Government’s devolution priority programme, which will see local authorities in Essex work towards establishing a Mayoral Combined County Authority by May 2026. You can read more about devolution and local government reorganisation (LGR)) on our careers site.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process. We’re also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

Once you’ve secured your role within Essex County Council you will receive many great employee benefits, including support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.

At Essex County Council, we value integrity and ethical behaviour. We kindly ask that you embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles, including throughout the recruitment process. Your commitment to these standards helps us maintain a positive and respectful workplace for everyone.

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join The Essex Talent Community

If you have queries or require anything further, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Further details can be found on our careers page.

Links / Downloads

Pay and Reward | Our Ways of Working  | About Us  | Organisation Behaviours