Finance Assistant - Children's Payment Team

About Us

We are committed to improving our services for the children and families we support in West Sussex. In May 2023 Ofsted Inspectors praised West Sussex County Council's Children's Services for its 'relentless approach to improving practice,' giving the service an overall rating of 'requires improvement', with 'good' judgements for children in care and leadership and management. The judgements on children needing help and protection and children leaving care are they 'require improvement to be good'.

Inspectors recognised the 'strong, determined and cohesive leadership team' who have made significant improvements since 2019 and their commitment and focus to make further improvements.

The Opportunity

Salary: £14,174 - £14,400 pro rata per annum (Full Time equivalent £25,584 to £25,992 per annum)
Contract Type: Permanent
Working Pattern: Part Time - 20.5 hours per week - work 3 days x 5 hours, 1 day x 5.5 hours - exact pattern to be discussed further at interview.
Location: Based at County Hall, Chichester with hybrid working - currently 2 days a week in the office but can vary depending on business need. To be discussed further at Interview
Interviews: week commencing 05/05/2025

The Children's Payment team are looking to recruit a finance assistant on a part time basis, based in County Hall Chichester. As a finance assistant, you will provide high-quality, flexible financial and administrative support to the Children, Young People and Learning directorate.

In this role, you will be part of a team who deliver a specialist financial service. This includes responding to customer queries, giving standard information and guidance, maintaining records, and providing support and day to day processing according to set procedures.

To succeed in this role, you will need to have excellent Excel and Word skills, be confident and accurate in your financial ability, flexible, resilient, organised, be able to balance priorities and deadlines, and enjoy working as part of a team.

About you

To be successful in this role you will need to:

• Possess good numeracy skills with sound and accurate financial knowledge demonstrating experience in a financial/office environment.
• Have great communication skills, both written and verbal, to deal effectively with stakeholders to ensure specialist advice, guidance and information is shared and understood.
• Be organised, able to prioritise work and deliver on deadlines.
• Have excellent IT skills and have a good working knowledge of Microsoft Office Software to enable accurate inputting of data and use of databases.
• Be both adaptable and flexible, you will enjoy the challenge this role will give you to meet service needs, where you will be able to work well in changing situations and embrace new ways of working positively and effectively.

For more information on the Key Skills as well as the Qualifications and/or experience required, please refer to the relevant Job Description attached.

Rewards and Benefits

As an employer we recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance and are rewarded for the work they do. Upon joining us you will have access to a range of benefits including:

For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further Information

The reference number for this role is CAFHE05687.

For any query regarding the role, please contact Liz Bushell (Senior Payments Officer) .

If you have general queries around your application, you can contact .

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter. In your cover letter, please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV.

Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject 3 years referencing and a health check.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.

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