Job description

We’re looking for individuals who can bring relevant skills and experience from a research, policy, financial or public sector background, to help ensure public services are run properly for the people of Scotland.

We are Audit Scotland. We're Scotland’s public sector auditor, independent of government. We employ more than 340 talented professionals who know that their work helps ensure the efficient delivery of public services in Scotland. We believe that public money (around £57 billion a year) should be spent wisely.

There's plenty of change ahead, and the need for robust public audit that provides assurance about public spending and helps public services improve is more important than ever. We want to make sure Scotland makes the very best of the opportunities and that change is delivered well – transparent financial reporting and delivering value for money are key to this.

There has never been a more interesting or important time to join us. We offer a rewarding place to work, a supportive and open culture and a wide range of professional development opportunities. Benefits include 42 days of annual leave including public holidays, an attractive local government pension scheme with 19.4% employer contributions, personal development allowances and flexible working hours. We’ve also been named one of the top 40 workplaces in Scotland and the UK’s eighth best accountancy workplace in the 2022 Best Companies awards.

Overall purpose of the role

Our Performance Audit and Best Value Group (PABV) delivers audit products on priority areas such as climate change, public sector recovery and reform and tackling inequalities. Right now we’re auditing a wide range of areas, including: the sustainability of Scotland’s public finances, the Scottish Government’s NHS Recovery Plan, adult mental health services, digital exclusion, social care and the National Care Service, early learning and childcare, and backlogs in the criminal courts. Our Best Value audit work in councils looks at important issues like how well they perform in delivering services to their communities. Our work programmeis dynamic and refreshed on a regular basis to respond to changing circumstances.

Our work involves identifying audit risks affecting the Scottish public sector, scoping audit work to ensure it focuses on what matters, developing audit methodologies, gathering and assessing evidence (quantitative and qualitative), forming judgements and conclusions, and writing clear, evidence-based reports for the public and Scottish Parliament, that include recommendations for improvement to public bodies.

As a Senior Auditor in PABV, you will help deliver high-quality performance and best value audit work and support the development of our work programme through conducting complex audit work. You will make audit judgements and oversee the work of other team members to deliver our audits to a world-class standard. You’ll build relationships and liaise with audited bodies and stakeholders, providing assurance which helps support improvement and focus on what’s important.

How you can help us

As a senior member of the audit team, you will:

• work with colleagues to decide the breadth and depth of auditing required in proportion to the circumstances, including the audit methodology
• play a key role in planning and delivering audits or key audit areas to time, cost and quality (and may have lead responsibility for this depending on the size and risk-profile of the audit/work)
• make professional, evidence-based judgements and identify potential recommendations
• draft clear, authoritative and concise audit outputs
• support senior leadership in promoting our work externally
• establish and maintain relationships with officers at audited bodies and appropriate stakeholders to support the effective delivery of audit work
• coordinate the work of staff across the audit to manage peak period workloads
• undertake supportive conversations with colleagues in your team and positively challenge where necessary, including providing on-the-job training and coaching
• support the development of Audit Scotland’s work programme by sharing intelligence whether based on local audit knowledge, monitoring key public sector issues or by developing stand-alone briefings
• collaborate with colleagues across Audit Scotland to support our one organisation ambitions and maximise the impact of our work.

Specific knowledge and experience

Essential

• You are educated to degree level or have demonstrable, relevant experience of working in one or more of the following areas: audit and scrutiny, research, strategy and policy, data analytics, service delivery, or business management.
• You have good project and time management skills, and experience of planning and managing your own work.
• You are data-literate and have strong research and analysis skills, including experience with data analysis tools (either code-based, interactive, or otherwise).
• You can analyse complex problems and identify practical and realistic solutions, balanced findings, and persuasive recommendations.
• You have strong written and verbal communication and inter-personal skills and can build relationships with colleagues, audited bodies and stakeholders.
• You have experience supervising, coaching and developing people to help get the best out of a team.

Desirable

• You have experience of using methodologies for evaluating performance and analysing financial information.
• You have experience communicating your findings in an engaging way using visualisations, BI tools, or other appropriate means.
• You have knowledge and understanding of the Scottish public sector, how it is funded, how it works and the challenges it faces.
• You have or are working towards a financial qualification (CIPFA, ICAS, other CCAB, CIMA or equivalent).
• You have experience of community engagement, public participation and/or involving service users in policy development, monitoring and evaluation

Interested? Next steps:

Click the apply button to complete an application form. If you wish, you can also share your CV. We offer a range of benefits, please visit our careers page for more information.http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/careers

Our application deadline is Sunday 20 November 2022 at midnight. We’ve reserved weeks commencing 28 November and 5 December for interviews to take place.

Diversity and Inclusion

We value the unique perspective a diverse workforce brings to what we do. Therefore, we’re keen to increase representation in our workforce and support progression of minority ethnic groups. We are also a proud disability confident employer.

How we work

We employ around 340 staff in a wide variety of roles. They work flexibly at home and in the office as well as from audit sites across Scotland. This isn’t your typical work from home or work from office type job. We’re flexible about working patterns and we’ve transformed how we deliver high-quality public audit. We support you to work in the ways that achieve the best results for you, your team and the business, including your physical location and how you manage your hours. Put simply, we trust you to do your job, and want you to have the ability to have a rewarding work-life balance and best support your individual circumstances, be that childcare, adult carer responsibilities or managing disabilities.

We welcome applications from across the UK. Some travel to our offices or client sites will be necessary at times, but you don’t need to live in Scotland to work for us.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Salary: £42,853.00-£48,982.00 per year

Benefits:

• Company pension
• Cycle to work scheme
• Flexitime
• Sick pay
• Work from home

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Edinburgh, EH3 9DN

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