Accountant

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is the independent safety and economic regulator for Britain's railways and the independent monitor of Highways England. We are here to ensure the network operates safely, reliably and provides value for taxpayers and customers.

About the role

The Finance team is responsible for all payments of expenditure including staff expenses and the recovery of income from industry. The Finance team is also responsible for all external and internal financial reporting including that required by Government and statute. As a result of these activities, the team works closely with all directorates within the ORR.

This role covers a diverse range of issues and services which contribute to an efficient working environment for colleagues across the ORR.

Key responsibilities, although not exhaustive, are:

• Preparation and submission of the annual resource accounts, interim accounts and other external financial reporting e.g. Whole of Government Accounts, in accordance with Government and accounting standards.
• Key point of contact with external auditors (the National Audit Office) to ensure a clean audit.
• Effectively managing cash and bank balances to ensure ORR meets its agreed financial targets while minimising the risk of loss, including providing forecasts to HM Treasury and reconciling bank balances.
• Ensuring ORR complies with relevant taxation requirements including income tax and VAT, acting as the key contact point for HMRC.
• Responsibility for updating ORR’s Travel and Subsistence policy, ensuring that our policies remain within HMRC guidelines.
• Maintaining ORR’s fixed asset register - this will include a project to move the register to the Sun fixed assets module.
• Forecasting ORR’s capital expenditure and non-cash expenditure on a monthly basis.
• Provide HM Treasury with monthly ORR expenditure information on OSCAR (the Government’s financial reporting system) and any additional voted and non-voted monetary requirements as part of the Estimates process.

About you

It is essential that you are able to demonstrate the following qualifications, skills and experience in your application and at interview:

Essential experience

CCAB (or CIMA) fully or part-qualified accountant.

Recent experience of preparing year end financial accounts or parts of the accounts, and dealing with auditor queries.

Highly competent use of IT packages, in particular advanced Excel skills.

Essential skills and personal qualities

• Extremely high level of accuracy in everything you do.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, especially the ability to explain financial information to non-finance colleagues in an accessible and convincing manner.
• Strong ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines without compromising accuracy.
• Strong ability to work on own initiative and to look for improvements to processes.
• Desire to develop professionally, keeping up to date with new accounting standards and other Government guidance.

Desirable experience

• Experience of dealing with income tax and VAT an advantage.
• Experience of SUN Systems and Q&A (reporting tool) or similar an advantage.

Closing date: 1 October 2017