Whittington Hospital NHS Trust

Head of Financial Planning and Reporting

The closing date is 25 March 2026

Job summary

The post-holder is responsible for providing a comprehensive range of financial information to support Trust management in making key decisions. This includes the collation of monthly financial management information and producing reports for external, internal purposing including Trust committee's and Trust Board.

The post-holder is responsible for co-ordinating, developing and summarising Trust budgets. This will include responsibility for calculation and allocation of ICSU control totals, Cost Improvement targets and monitoring of these as part of the Trusts budget-setting process. Contributing and ensuring that these outputs are accurately reflected in the Trusts annual operating plan submission and monthly NHS Improvement financial returns.

This post-holder will support the Assistant Director of Financial Management and Head's of Finance in developing and reviewing Trust business cases to ensure accuracy and robustness.

Main duties of the job

referred to JD as attached

Create and establish systems, procedures, guidelines, policies and timetables for Financial Reporting within the Trust to ensure the efficiency, integrity and effectiveness of process and the delivery of key strategic departmental & organisational objectives.

Responsible for a monitoring and reporting regime, to provide advice and direction on all aspects of performance, including but not exclusively, finance, activity and workforce.

Contribute to the monthly financial closedown within the Finance team, and to work with the Senior Finance team to produce the monthly financial position. This will require detailed, and potentially complex, monthly analysis of financial data and effective communication of the cause and impact of material variances in conjunction with the senior finance team.

Ensure high quality accurate financial information and advice is provided to support managers and the Operational Director of Finance and Chief Finance Officer in effective decision making, including statutory returns and benchmarking returns to the NHSE and DOH

About us

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.

Date posted

13 March 2026

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 8b

Salary

£72,921 to £83,362 a year Per annum Inclusive of Inner HCAS pro-rata

Contract

Secondment

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

220-WHT-3745

Job locations

Highgate Wing

Magdala Avenue

Archway

N19 5NF

Job description

Job responsibilities

please refer to Job Description and Person Specification

Responsible for a monitoring and reporting regime, to provide advice and direction on all aspects of performance, including but not exclusively, finance, activity and workforce.

Manage the co-ordination and delivery of effective financial reporting advice to the Operational Director of Finance and Senior Managers within the organisation.

Provide timely and accurate information to comply with external and internal needs i.e. to enable the accurate and timely production of the annual budgets in line with specified timetables to meet internal and external requirements, ensuring an effective audit trail back to the general ledger.

Assist with the collation and reporting of financial information in line with the Trusts STP commitments.

Ensuring the Trust maintains a comprehensive reconciliation of its reserves position and provide sufficient scrutiny and governance of the use of the funds, developing robust monitoring and recording of the inter-relationships between income and expenditure.

Implement and maintain a process to ensure movements in funding from MPET/NMET sources are funded to the correct budgets on a monthly basis. To include a reconciliation between income streams to funded budgets, incorporating the tracking of junior doctor rotations. Providing financial support to selected budgets to ensure accurate reporting such as HEE income streams, pharmacy subsidiary and Research and Development with a view to building robust reporting to delegate to management accounts support.

Working closely with workforce colleagues to ensure the integrity of the Trusts funded establishment to that of the ESR database on a monthly basis.

Lead the annual financial planning and budget setting process across the Trust, including identification and prioritisation of cost pressures. Coordinate the annual budget setting process in conjunction with the support of the Operational Director of Finance and the Assistant Director - Financial Management.

Provide the financial input into service reconfiguration issues including business cases, option appraisals, cost benefit analyses, working with appropriate finance leads and service managers as required. Providing expert financial knowledge and advice, reviewing the Trusts financial modelling of business cases and tender submissions.

The post holder will be responsible for ensuring that all accounting treatments and processes are appropriate to fulfil the requirements of internal budgetary control and statutory external reporting.

Responsible for liaising with the other senior finance staff and appropriate budget holders, to ensure that any organisational changes are accurately identified, and reflected on the GL.

Ensure housekeeping procedures and controls are in place and followed.

The role may require being responsible for team members, and to be responsible for the recruitment, line management, supervision and performance review (including the setting of individual objectives and PDPs) of the staff members

Represent the Department at meetings as required. The role will be responsible for reviewing the Chart of Accounts. To develop / restructure the Chart of Accounts to ensure that it is fit for purpose.

To play a key role in the departments dealing with both internal and external audit, counter fraud and any other delegated audit work within the Trust

The role will require significant PC usage. Therefore the post holder will need to have expert Microsoft Office skills, in particular Excel skills, will need to have had experience of using computerised general ledger packages and will need to have good keyboard skills.

The job description is not intended to be exhaustive and it is likely that duties may be altered from time to time in the light of changing circumstances and after consultation with the post holder.