Business Partner – Corporate Planning and Performance

Scottish Enterprise is Scotland’s national economic development agency. We work to transform the Scottish economy by helping businesses innovate and scale.

The overall Scottish Enterprise budget is around £300 million. Around 80% is funded by the Scottish Government and the remainder from other sources, including investment income and returns from Scottish Enterprise’s property portfolio.

Managing this income and expenditure carefully is central to the role.

To do this, you’ll provide timely, accurate management accounting and budgeting services, supporting decision-making at every level of the organisation. You’ll also support business planning and future year budget allocations, handle ad-hoc finance requests, and contribute to the production of the Scottish Enterprise annual accounts.

Supporting delivery of the Scottish Enterprise Finance Strategy, your responsibilities will include:

• Helping Team Leaders identify and assess financial and budgetary risks that could affect our balanced budget position
• Helping formulate income and expenditure budget plans that underpin the Scottish Enterprise Business Plan, setting out organisational priorities and the resources available to deliver them
• Supporting directorates and teams to prepare a detailed operating plan that reconciles to the allocated budget
• Providing management information and reports to operational areas, and monitoring performance against the operating plan throughout the year.
• Helping management teams understand the reasons behind budget variances and their implications for future forecasts
• Providing financial management support to staff across the organisation, acting as the day-to-day link between operational and support directorates and the wider Finance team
• Training and supporting staff on our corporate systems, helping them plan, monitor and manage the financial and performance aspects of their projects
• Preparing and contributing to a wide range of financial requests, both internal and external, including those from Scottish Government and Freedom of Information requests
• Contributing to the development of our financial reporting framework, including tailored reports for different levels of the organisation, drawing on data from a range of sources and systems
• Ensuring project approvals and income and expenditure accruals are recorded promptly on our corporate systems, so project managers have the budget in place to deliver as planned
• Contributing to the annual accounts, ensuring balance sheet items are accounted for correctly, and supporting financial disclosures where required
• Contributing to the development of our new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and helping to streamline current reporting

Confident and analytical, you bring strong experience in management accounting. You are also comfortable with complexity, communication and collaboration. Monthly and yearly reporting are a key part of the role, so you’ll need to be flexible about your working hours at busier times of the year.

Essential requirements

As an experienced management accounting professional, you’ll bring:

• Membership of a Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB) institute, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, or an equivalent overseas qualification
• Proven experience preparing and delivering management information, performance reports, variance analysis, and related commentary
• Strong analytical skills and excellent attention to detail
• A proactive, problem-solving approach
• The ability to manage change effectively, adapting to evolving financial processes and priorities while supporting
• Experience of developing organisational reporting and working with complex data sources to meet end-user needs
• The ability to work collaboratively and build strong relationships across the organisation, making sure information flows openly and on time
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Advanced Excel skills, including managing large datasets and using pivot tables and complex formulas
• Ideally, but not essentially, you’ll also have good knowledge of Power BI