About the role
OPEN TO INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL APPLICANTS
Established for over 30 years, the Cambridgeshire County Council Training Scheme offers graduates an extraordinary opportunity for a rewarding career in public finance and internal audit, allowing you to influence key local authority decisions that matter to communities.
We are looking to recruit a number of enthusiastic and determined individuals to join our two schemes, specialising in either Financial Management or Internal Audit. Successful applicants will have strong communication and analytical skills and be able to think creatively. You are not required to have any previous finance or accountancy experience.
Successful applicants will have, or will be expecting to achieve, a 2:1 degree or higher in any discipline and 3 Bs (or equivalent in UCAS points) at A-Level or equivalent recognised qualification.
All trainees will study for the CIPFA Professional Qualification through the Level 7 Apprenticeship programme at the CIPFA Education Training Centre in London and at the end of the three and a half years qualify as a Chartered Public Finance Accountant. To find about more about the qualification, please visit the CIPFA website: https://www.cipfa.org/
For the 2024 intake we have 2-3 vacancies across the two streams. Expected start date is August 2024.
The application process will take the form of assessment centre and final interview, to be held in February 2024. As part of this process, you will have the opportunity to indicate a preference for the Financial Management or Internal Audit specialism.
Closing date for applications 14th January 2024.
For enquiries about the scheme, please contact Catherine McAlpine (Catherine.McAlpine@cambridgeshire.gov.uk; 01223 706798).
What will you be doing?
Financial Management stream
Over three and a half years, you will undertake different placements in Service Finance, Corporate Finance and Internal Audit, on a 12-month rotation cycle. This gives you a breadth of experience across the whole council and teaches you a wide range of technical and managerial skills, so you can learn where your interests lie and have the ability to pursue a career in your chosen area. Each placement will provide you with real responsibility from the start. You will have a varied mix of monthly tasks and high-level projects, supporting the needs of your CIPFA studies and your development as a public sector finance professional. Opportunities include:
- Supporting a selection of budget managers, including service managers and directors, providing professional financial advice to inform their decision making and maximise their service delivery
- Supporting services through budget setting and monitoring, and advising on resource allocation and savings proposals
- Working on projects to procure new services, from care home provision to our major highways contract
- Gaining a knowledge of technical accounting and working across Public Sector organisations i.e. NHS Trusts, schools
- Developing, completing and reporting on your own Internal Audit assignments to analyse and improve the Council’s control environment.
Internal Audit stream
Over the three and a half years, you will remain primarily based in the Audit team, supporting the service in providing independent assurance on the effectiveness of the organisation’s risk management, governance and internal control processes. You will work closely with management to recommend and agree improvements to systems based on your own work, which will include a wide range of assignments across financial audit, contract audit, project management, IT audit and work in social care and fraud investigations. You will also have opportunities to develop your own areas of specialisation; this may include undertaking placements in other services such as professional finance, and/or expanding your skillset by undertaking audit work with external partners, including schools.
About you
Please see the attached Person Specification pdf for detailed criteria. Successful candidates will use their Supporting Statement to demonstrate evidence of how they meet these criteria.
Our benefits
We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits:
- Flexible working
- Flexible Bank Holidays
- A comprehensive wellbeing package
- Our Cambs Rewards employee discounts
- A comprehensive pension scheme
- IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network.
- Camweb our staff intranet helping to keep you informed
- An employee recognition scheme
About us
Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.
Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.
We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.
Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.
We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Some examples of adjustments could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.
Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion.
Attached documents
