Financial Management / Internal Audit Associate

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing , both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays adaptably to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities , apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes

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 great 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 Accountancy Qualification 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.

For the 2025 intake we have 3-4 vacancies across the two streams. Expected start date is August 2025.

The application process will take the form of assessment centre and final interview, to be held in February and March 2025. As part of this process, you will have the opportunity to indicate a preference for the Financial Management or Internal Audit specialism.

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 undertake two yearlong placements in the Audit team and one in Finance. While working in the Audit team you will be 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, and/or expanding your skillset by undertaking audit work with external partners, including schools.

About you

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. Please include details of all these qualifications with the grades or predicted grades in your application as they are the essential criteria .

Candidates should also demonstrate that they have the Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours detailed in the attached Person Specification pdf in the Supporting Statement section of their application. The Person Specification pdf can be found at the very bottom of this job advert page.

Successful applicants must have the Right to Work from the start date.

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.

• Collaborative
• Accountable
• Respectful
• Excellence

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.