Corporate Services

Business Support

Our multi-skilled teams operate in two ways, Service Support teams work alongside front-line services day to day and are an integral part of the team, and we have a Business Centre who provide essential support to the whole of the Council. We are trusted to work flexibly whilst meeting service needs.

We pride ourselves on being proactive, forward-thinking and solution focused, we streamline processes and maximise digital opportunities. In doing so, we help increase the effectiveness of Essex County Council to deliver better outcomes for the people of Essex.

If you choose to join us in Business Support you will deliver vital administration support to a range of different front line services who protect vulnerable children and adults, support schools and provide a multitude of services to the people of Essex.

Business Support is committed to supporting and developing staff to achieve their aspirations.

Finance

There has never been a more exciting and challenging time to join our high performing team. We continue to work with politicians, senior officers, and partners across a range of diverse services helping them deliver first class services to the residents, visitors and businesses of Essex in a difficult period for public sector finances in the UK.

Whether it is shaping our response to the growing pressures across social care or working with partners to implement Local Government Reorganisation, our finance professionals are right at the heart of the strategic programmes addressing the biggest issues facing the public sector in the 21st century.

If you have the passion and vision to help bring about the sort of change needed to keep one of the biggest local authorities in the country at the forefront of high quality public service provision, while helping ensure financial resilience for future organisations, then we would love to meet you and explore what opportunities there are for you to join us.

Our expert Transactional and Systems team leads the financial administration of the authority, ensuring budgetary frameworks, control and statutory requirements are met.

Collectively, our financial administration oversees close to £3 billion of expenditure per year. We manage income, financial assessments, debtors, and purchase-to-pay totalling over one million transactions a year. These resources give us the opportunity we’re passionate about to make a profound impact on Essex and the people who call our county home.

We are an accredited employer by the most relevant CCAB bodies, and we run a full programme of internal training and development opportunities to ensure everyone has the opportunity to keep their CPD up to date. We also encourage and facilitate participation in wider policy shaping activities and the advancement of the public finance profession more generally. Many of our staff are active on national and regional forums and working groups including the CIPFA regional committee and the CIPFA national student network.

Procurement

Talented and experienced, our Procurement team is the largest in Local Government. We lead on sourcing, contract management and category management, dealing with a supply chain reach that’s one of the largest in the public sector:

• 1,300 suppliers
• 306 contracts
• £5.8b total managed contracts value
• £133m average sourcing project value.

We are the only CIPS accredited local authority in the UK.

Our ambition is to be:

• Recognised by our peers as the best procurement function in the public sector
• Recognised by internal customers as enabling and driving transformational change
• Recognised by partners as driving collaboration across the public sector
• Recognised by the market as an attractive and priority customer.

To find out more about the team, please visit their recruitment microsite.

Essex Digital Service

At Essex Digital Service, we power the everyday. From paying a bill to accessing vital support, our work sits at the heart of how residents and colleagues live, work and connect.

Our North Star gives us a clear direction: to deliver high quality, modern digital services that make it easier for people to get what they need, while empowering our teams to collaborate, innovate and thrive. As one team, we remove barriers, simplify experiences and work intentionally together to deliver meaningful change.

Digital is central to Greater Essex’s ambitions for local government reform and modernising local government services. We’re embracing AI, modernising our platforms and investing in secure, service based solutions that put people first and deliver real value.

The scale of our impact is significant:

• Manage 240 apps across the organisation
• Managed 16,400 service requests last year
• Have 287 active projects
• Trained 1,246 people last year
• Support 168 sites
• Fixed 18,500 incidents and filtered 2.25 million spam emails in the past 12 months.

Whoever joins our 180 strong team will have the opportunity to shape the future of local government digital, contribute to nationally leading work, and play a vital role in delivering better outcomes for Essex.

Essex Pension Fund

Join the Essex Pension Fund and you’ll quickly notice it’s built around people – the people we serve and the people who deliver for them every day. We support around 185,000 members from approx. 800 employers, including the vital frontline workforces of Essex Police and Essex Fire & Rescue Service.

Safeguarding a fund of around £13 billion is a significant responsibility, and it is one our organisation embraces with care, professionalism, and pride. At the heart of this responsibility is a close-knit team of around 75 passionate and highly committed staff, whose collective experience of more than 700 years brings depth, resilience, and confidence to everything we do. United by strong values, a culture of collaboration, and a genuine commitment to service, our people work tirelessly to deliver trusted pension administration and long-term security for members and employers across Essex.

Discover more about Essex Pension Fund.

Learn about careers in Essex Pension Fund.

Legal

As the in-house legal service, Essex Legal Services (ELS) prides itself on providing a comprehensive legal service to the Council. Most of our work is done in-house, and we value the people who work for us and provide a supportive working environment, where people work hard to do their best for Essex. The work can be demanding, and we expect resilience, but we are committed to ensuring that ELS is a place where people want to stay.

We offer comprehensive legal advice across the Council and to external clients, enabling them to make well informed decisions which positively impact on service delivery while meeting statutory requirements. Our work is diverse and engaging, working closely with senior leaders to make a real difference to the delivery of services of residents. If you are looking to become a crucial part of a friendly, welcoming, and high achieving team, this could be what you are looking for.

Assurance

Here we have four specialist areas:

• Internal Audit & Counter Fraud: This team provides risk-based and objective assurance, advice and insight regarding the management of risks within the Council. They also play a key role in the prevention, detection and investigation of fraud.
• Corporate Health & Safety: These talented professionals ensure the effective management of health, safety and wellbeing of all employees.
• Emergency Planning & Resilience: EP&R is responsible for ensuring that the Council has sufficient emergency response and business continuity arrangements to help the organisation in its response to emergencies.
• Risk & Insurance: This team provides assurance, support and challenge across the organisation on all areas of business risk management.
• Fraud: The Counter Fraud Team aim to protect the public purse by helping to prevent fraud against the Council. The Counter Fraud Team deliver bespoke session on fraud awareness and participate in national data matching exercises to highlight any potential instances of fraud. The team work closely with colleagues in Internal Audit to ensure the Council has a strong control framework. Where fraud is suspected the team will investigate and take appropriate action, including prosecution, where appropriate.

Democracy and Transparency

This team are responsible for the provision of Democratic Services, Member Enquiries, and Information Governance.

• Democratic Services helps Council Members participate in the democratic process​. They operate at the core of the political environment of the Council, providing expert constitutional guidance and advice whilst ensuring legislative standards and best practice are adhered to. As well as this, they provide the statutory school appeals service, processing appeals, organising, and clerking hearings.
• Member Enquiries are crucial in the effective delivery of the democratic process at the Council. They support Essex County Councillors and Members of Parliament providing comprehensive responses on a wide range of queries to elected members in order for them to support their role in the community.
• The role of Information Governance and Transparency is to deliver effective and high-quality information governance, the implementation of new legislation requirements, data protection and sharing, records management and information rights advice, to manage and report on security incidents, undertake impact assessments and responding to complaints. They also deal with Subject Access Requests and Freedom of Information and Environmental Information requests.

Transformation

Transformation is the professional home of project management within Essex County Council, and we are always keen to speak to those who are experienced in project and programme management.

We play a pivotal role at the forefront of the council’s transformation agenda. Our Whole Council Transformation strategy sets out our plans for being one of the most forward looking, effective and financially sustainable Councils in the country. Our prioritised portfolio of projects and programmes support the achievement of the organisational outcomes, support long term financial sustainability, and enable us to adapt to an increasingly complex and fast changing environment, which includes Devolution and Local Government Reorganisation (LGR). The variety of transformation projects in the Council is vast, ranging from supporting our strategy in relation to the economy, the environment and the health and well-being of Essex residents.

The successful delivery of such a large and complex portfolio requires excellence in the development of our people and practices.

People and Organisational Development

People and Organisation Development is made up of a number of services that work together and across the council to improve our services, transform the council and ensure our people can meet the council’s challenges now and in the future.​

The services that make up People and Organisational Development include:​

People Services​

• People Business Partnering​
• People Consultancy and Employment Practice​
• Payroll​
• People Analytics, Performance and Insight​
• Reward​

Organisation Development ​

• Wellbeing​
• Organisation Development​
• Equality Diversity and Inclusion​

Talent and Resourcing​

• Employment Vetting​
• Learning and Development​
• Resourcing​
• Strategic Resourcing

HR Shared Services​ (separately delivering the below services for external clients)

• Recruitment​
• Employment Vetting​
• HR Consultancy​
• Talent and Attraction