Role: Student Finance Lead

Location: Bedford Campus

Salary/Benefits: Salary from £24,000 DOE and Qualification, 27 days annual leave plus bank holiday, People's pension, Retail and Leisure Discounts

Hours: 37 hours (1.0 FTE)

Contract Type: Permanent - Full Time

About the role:

We are looking for a Student Finance Lead join our Finance Department. As a finance lead you will play a pivotal role in the success of the students through:

• Maintaining and updating the online student bursary system.
• Organising and scheduling payment runs
• Posting accounting transactions and perform balance sheet reconciliations within the accounting systems.
• Making use of current technology and approaches to steer administration and communication.
• Analysing reconcile and report student support funds and process statutory and other returns/claims
• Sourcing bursary related data from a number of systems deriving analytics to recommend new strategies.

About you:

• Level 4 AAT.
• Minimum of 5 GCSEs grade 4 or above, or equivalent, including mathematics and English
• Customer service training
• Recent continual professional development
• Experience of processing accounting entries in a Finance system
• Experience of preparing month end balance sheet reconciliations
• Experience of running payments runs
• Experience of writing impactful analytical reports
• Experience of workings effectively with people from diverse backgrounds
• Ability to manipulate data, such as VLOOKUPS, pivots, SUMIFS, data validation and goal seek.
• Ability to analyse and interpret data and communicate and influence change
• Ability to communicate effectively in person, on the telephone and in writing with students, staff and external agencies
• Excellent organisation skills and ability to prioritise to meet tight deadlines

Successful candidates must also be able to demonstrate alignment to our organisational VISION values:

• Valuing Teamwork - We are one team who by working together can achieve great things, respecting the opinion and valuing the contribution each of us makes.
• Improving Continuously - We challenge ourselves to always do better by trying new things, sharing knowledge, reflecting on practice and learning from others.
• Student Centred - At our heart is always doing what is best for our students. We consider students in all of our decision making to create positive outcomes and memorable experiences for every student.
• Inclusive - We celebrate differences and diversity, recognising that we can learn from each other.
• Open and Caring - We care about the wellbeing of our staff, our students, our community and wider society, creating an environment built on trust where we listen, engage with and support each other.
• Nurturing Education Excellence - We promote educational excellence by delivering programmes that challenge our students to achieve their ambitions.

About The Bedford College Group
The Bedford College Group was formed in 2017 following the merger of Bedford College and Tresham College and is now the largest provider of education in the South East Midlands, with over 15,000 students passing through our doors each year.

Today, the Group is made up of a family of colleges across Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire:"Bedford College, Central Bedfordshire College and"Tresham"College"in the towns of Bedford, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough;"Shuttleworth"College,"a specialist land-based college; The Bedford Sixth Form, (the only dedicated sixth form in Bedford); The Corby Sixth Form, (opened in September 2023); and the National College for Motorsport"alongside"Silverstone"race circuit."To widen accessibility to education and training, the Group also has community-based Learning Centres in Bedford, Corby and Kettering which offer IT training.

Safeguarding our Students
The Bedford College Group is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidate will be subject to thorough vetting process which includes, an enhanced DBS check and satisfactory references.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. 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. The Bedford College Group's policy on Employment of Ex-Offenders is attached to this vacancy.

Candidates who are barred from working with children are reminded it is a criminal offence to apply for this post.