United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Project Finance Officer

Position: Project Finance Officer

Reports to: Project Director

Location: London

Salary: circa £35,000 per annum

Grade: 7

Contract: Fixed term to 31^st May 2018 (possible extension to April 2019 – subject to funding)

Hours: Full time. 37.5 hours / week.

BACKGROUND

Over the past 80 years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping uprooted communities to rebuild. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster.

The International Rescue Committee UK is part of the IRC global network, which has its headquarters in New York and London. The IRC is on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief, relocating refugees and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster. Through 22 regional offices in cities across the United States, the IRC also helps refugees resettle in the US and become self-sufficient.

The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a tireless advocate for the most vulnerable.

IRC-UK

Our European headquarters, IRC-UK, were established in London in 1997 to support the organisation’s global activities and particularly to diversify its donor base and be able to better advocate with European policy-makers on behalf of the people we serve. Since its establishment IRC-UK has grown rapidly and is now acknowledged for its high quality project management, technical expertise in governance and rights and economic recovery, and innovative thinking on early recovery and gender based violence. The IRC also has offices in Brussels and Geneva.

IRC-UK comprises approximately 90 staff across five departments.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

This post works with two projects: “What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls in conflict and humanitarian crises” and “COMPASS”.

What Works

There is growing recognition of the scale and scope of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in conflict and humanitarian emergencies. However, existing rigorous evidence is limited, holding back the humanitarian community from implementing the most effective prevention and response strategies.

This project will build evidence on how to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls in conflict and humanitarian emergencies.

The project will: strengthen the evidence base on prevalence and drivers of VAWG, prevention and response strategies, and links to conflict and peace building; build the capacity of researchers and practitioners in VAWG research methods and practices, and; engage key stakeholders in research uptake, to ensure that evidence is available to and utilized by policy makers, service providers and programme practitioners.

The project is a Department for International Development (DFID) funded commercial contract and is part of a wider programme of research on VAWG involving two other components led by other research consortium.

COMPASS

COMPASS is a three and a half year DFID funded programme which seeks to address violence against adolescent girls in humanitarian settings in the DRC, Ethiopia and Pakistan. The programme is implementing a number of interventions such as safe space programming, building the capacity of service providers and caregivers amongst others to achieve its objectives. These interventions are being tested for their validity and effectiveness by IRC’s research partner Columbia University.

The Purpose of the Role

• To provide high-quality support to Project Management Team, Country Offices and Partners, on financial management for the assigned projects
• To lead on a range of financial processes on the assigned projects, from financial planning, budgeting, reporting, performance monitoring and financial risk management, invoicing/transfers processes
• To oversee the financial accounting, supplier payments, Partners payment and grant/contract accounting on the specific assigned projects.

Scope and Authority

Authority:

• This position has authority to lead and advise the Project Director (What Works) and Project Coordinator (COMPASS) on financial management issues.

Responsibility for Resources:

• This position is not a budget holder but is required to manage and oversee project budgets
• Responsible for quality assuring accuracy of donor budget and financial reports
• Responsible for the invoicing/fund transfers process.

Key Working Relationships

• Has regular contact with the Project Management Team with regards to the financial management of the project
• Has regular contact with VPRU Team and Grants/Finance Team in IRC US and UK with regards to financial management of the project
• Provides support to Country Offices with regards to budgeting, reporting, payment issues, when needed
• Has external contact with Consortium Partners with regards to technical and finance/contract management.**KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES**

Budgets Management (20%)

• Prepare and review the Project Budgets to ensure data is complete and maintained on a timely basis
• In collaboration with the Project Management Team, ensure that all donor-related financial information is disseminated to Project, Finance and Logistics staff as well as Partners to enable them to abide by donor rules and regulations.

Managing Commercial contracts (20%)

• Prepare and review milestones calculations and ensure that they are able to cover built in costs
• Work with the project team to develop tools to implement sound financial management of commercial contracts for the IRC (e.g. cash flow management tools, invoice trackers)
• Monitor the cash flow by reviewing Payment By Results (PBR) requirements, ensuring that targets and milestones are in alignment with payment schedule and cash flow needs, ensuring that payments received/paid align to IRC’s cash flow projections.

Internal and External Reporting (20%)

• Prepare Budget Versus Actual reports on a monthly basis and ensure that the Project Management Team has a good understanding of the spending progress and any other matters arising from the report
• Prepare quarterly financial reports as per DFID donor requirements, ensuring they are complete, accurate and produced on a timely manner to ensure adequate review, approval and submission

• Coordinate and review Partner/Country Offices financial reports

• Setting up financial templates for Partners/Country Officers to report on

• Manage and monitor expenses versus project budget, highlighting variances and resource allocation needs to Project Director and Project Coordinator

• Review quarterly financial reports produced by Country Offices and Partners ensuring they are complete, accurate and produced on a timely manner for consolidation and submission

• Ensure financial reports are produced in compliance with DFID’s exchange rate policies, including keeping track of expenditure in currencies other than GBP and identifying the rate at which they need to be converted into GBP

• May be required to run transaction lists and prepare reports.

Performance Monitoring and Financial Management (20%)

• In coordination with Project Management Team and Partners, prepare and consolidate monthly invoices and expenses forecasts
• Prepare cash flow forecasts, consolidated with Partners and Country Offices
• Analyze variances of the forecast and actual spending and submit adjustments as required.

Invoicing/Fund Transfer Process Monitoring (10%)

• Prepare invoices to be issued to DFID and monitor the payment process
• Check the invoices received by Partners and monitor the payment process
• Submit payment requests to finance and overall financial oversight
• Consolidate payment breakdown by Country Office according to previous quarter spent, balance and forecasts
• Process fund transfers to Country Offices.

Support to Project Management Team, Country Offices and Partners (10%)

• Any other additional tasks to support the Project Management Team, Country Offices and Partners.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Bachelor Degree in Accounting, Commerce, Economics, or Business studies
• Knowledge of computerized accounting software, preferably SUN System
• Excellent proficiency in Microsoft Excel
• Knowledge of DFID’s commercial contract rules and regulations
• Good communication skills
• Ability to build good working relationships with Project Management Team, Country Offices and Partners, at different levels ,functions and in different locations
• Ability to work with limited supervision, be flexible and comfortable in a multi-cultural work force.

Experience:

• Good experience of providing finance support to development, humanitarian or research projects or programmes
• Significant experience in a Finance department
• Good experience of working within an International Donor-funded Organization
• Good experience of managing large(multi-million) pound budgets or contracts

Desirable

• Experience of project financial close-out procedures

To Apply

Please send a CV (two pages maximum) and cover page (two pages maximum) to: applications@rescue-uk.org

Please state clearly in your cover letter:

• Your reasons for applying
• How you meet the skills, knowledge and experience specified in the person specification part of the job description
• Where you saw the job advertised
• Current salary

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis so candidate are encouraged to submit their application as soon as possible. The deadline for all applications is 10am on Monday 20^th March 2017. Interviews will take place on 24^th, 27^th and the afternoon of 28^th March 2017.

In order to minimise administrative costs, IRC-UK will only contact short-listed candidates.

Candidates must have the right to work in the UK.

IRC-UK strives to be an equal opportunities employer. IRC-UK is committed to equality of opportunity and to non-discrimination for all job applicants and employees, and we seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs, nationality, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability.