Finance and Administration Officer - School of Biosciences - 101583 - Band 500

Position Details

School of Biosciences

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £25,506 to £27,399, with potential progression once in post to £31,718

Band 500

Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to May 2026

Closing date: 14th May 2023

Open House Event : We will be holding an ‘open house’ event at the University’s Exchange building, in Centenary Square, Birmingham, between 10am and 6pm on Wednesday 19 April 2023. If you’re interested in working at the University of Birmingham and perhaps have a few questions, this is an opportunity to meet colleagues in the Recruitment team. It will be a relaxed and informal event – you can drop in at any time.

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

As a Finance and Administration Officer within the centre, the post-holder will provide support for a broad range of administrative duties, some of which may be complex. They will be responsible for supporting colleagues (both academics and professional services), and sharing knowledge to develop and nurture administrative capacity. The post-holder will be able to use their wide range of skills, both technical and administrative, and can lead on specific tasks, activities and projects within the team, often independently. The post-holder will need to develop and maintain relationships with a very wide variety of teams across the university, such as Research Support Services, Human Resources, IT Services, Finance, Accounts, Procurement, Research Finance and the Contracts team. On a day-to-day basis the post-holder will be expected to resolve complex queries, escalating appropriately as required.

Role Summary

The Centre for Environm ental Research and Justice (CERJ) is an ambitious and innovative new centre at the University of Birmingham, incorporating a unique approach to investigate and improve environmental health via interdisciplinary research, bringing together the worlds of toxicology, environmental health and environmental justice and law. CERJ is a beacon at the University of Birmingham for novel approaches to undertaking interdisciplinary science, justice and action in relation to human and environmental health. In addition to CERJ, this post will support revenue generating activities, such as the Phenome Centre Birmingham (PCB), the Daphnia Facility and Envision , which provide research facility services to internal and external customers.

We require an enthusiastic and capable Finance and Administration Officer to support the day-to-day administrative activities of the centre, working across a variety of tasks to form part of the wider centre administrative team. This is an extremely varied role working across a range of activities, and the post-holder will have substantial room and support to develop their capabilities in project and administrative management with a view to become the centre’s “administrative champion”. The Finance and Administration Officer will lead numerous administrative activities within CERJ and its UoB partner network, meaning a friendly demeanour is essential, and customer service experience is key. The right person for this post must be willing and keen to work within varied teams – as well as independently – to deliver high-quality overarching centre administration and project work.

Main Duties

• Provide front-line support for day-to-day administrative activities of CERJ, PCB, Envision, and related project activities (e.g., PrecisionTox, ASPIS, PARC), including but not limited to:
  • Purchasing and procurement, travel booking, organising meetings, agenda preparation, minute taking, diary management, recruitment, file storage and digital archive management, financial and budgetary management, invoicing and journaling, events management, web management, specialist training other staff in administration, etc.
• Support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems across CERJ, PCB, Envision, and associated projects.
• Provide professional Personal Assistant support to the Centre Director, including but not limited to diary management, travel booking, and completion of expenses.

Financial Administration

• Monitor and approve expenditure in line with established budgets to ensure activities keep within budget, raising concerns where this is not the case.
• Proactively liaise with Accounting and Research Finance teams to raise invoices, submit financial statements, resolve issues relating to accounts, set-up new projects, etc.
• Process financial transactions (journals, invoices, etc.) in relation to CERJ, PCB, Envision and related project activities.
• Procure goods and services through the University system.
• Prepare bespoke reports and budgetary analysis for review by the Centre Manager.

Records Management and reporting

• Maintain PCB and Envision project framework documentation to ensure that projects are kept on-track and paperwork is kept up to date.
• Assist on preparation of reports and project deliverables.
• Establish and/or maintain the web presence of CERJ, PCB and Envision.
• Ensure compliance with funding body standards (where appropriate), including maintaining an up to date understanding of reporting standards, managing deadlines for deliverables and co-ordinating inputs from project partners.

Advising Junior Staff

• Advise PhD students, researchers, and new starters on:
  • UoB purchasing, travel and expenses policies
  • Open-access publishing processes
  • The location of suitable IT resources / how to procure these
  • Service contracts, annual maintenance program within various centres

Other Project Administration

• Manage visits for external collaborators to the centre.
• Provide support for staff recruitment at all stages, from College Post Approval Group (CPAG) through onboarding.
• Undertake corporate card reconciliation and expenses for a small number of CERJ and affiliated staff.
• Manage large shipments of project samples as part of the PrecisionTox project.
• Undertake project development via the Worktribe portal, including Budget, Ethical Review and Contract submission (with guidance from relevant members of the team).
• Administer new staff inductions to CERJ and related projects.

Internal and External Relationships

• Serve as the central conduit between CERJ, PCB, Envision, and related projects, and the wider university teams, such as Research Support Services, Human Resources, IT Services, Finance, Accounts, Procurement, Research Finance, and Contracts.
• Work closely and efficiently with internal centre and project teams, liaise and solve requests and problems on a timely basis.

General

• Promote equality and value diversity, acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
• Understand and comply with the University’s policies and procedures.
• Champion administrative excellence throughout the University of Birmingham.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Experience working within a large, complex organisation with many departments
• Educated to A Level standard, or equivalent level 3 qualification such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma or relevant work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
• Highly proficient IT skills, in particular the ability to handle complex electronic diaries and emails, the wider MS Office suite of programmes including excel and powerpoint, and some experience of using an enterprise resource planning package. The post holder should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required.
• Proven ability to plan and anticipate requirements, proactively planning own (and sometimes others’ workloads) to manage time effectively, progress tasks concurrently and work to deadlines.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences, and to required deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills. The postholder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and always provide excellent customer service.
• A high degree of professionalism, tact, and diplomacy, and the ability to exercise discretion regarding the handling and management of sensitive information/issues.
• A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.
• Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation, and to develop a good understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work
• Ability to understand policy and procedures and how to apply these
• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.

Dimensions

This role will require the exercise of personal initiative within CERJ, PCB, PARC, ASPIS and related projects.

Planning and organising

The role is required to work independently on daily, weekly and monthly tasks but also on projects with medium-longer-term horizons without daily supervision.

Problem solving and decision making

They will work with direction from management but with a significant degree of autonomy. They will deal with more complex queries and be expected to resolve any problems in their area of responsibility.

Internal and external relationships

This role will be liaising with internal colleagues and stakeholders, likely to be University-wide and with external stakeholders.

Informal enquires to David Epps, d.epps@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working .