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 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 in adult social care or working with partners to address the housing crisis by delivering the most ambitious new towns programme nationally, our finance professionals are right at the heart of the strategic programmes addressing the biggest issues facing the public sector in the 21^st 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, whilst all the time helping ensure financial resilience, then we would love to meet you and explore what opportunities there are for you to join us.

This expert 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 per year. We manage income, assessment, invoices, 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 all the 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 and maintained. 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.

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.

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.

Technology

Our vision here is important: to deliver high-calibre technology services across the organisation, creating the conditions where employees, citizens and businesses can collaborate, innovate and thrive. The scale of our services and our digital ambitions is impressive. Over the coming years the council will test out new approaches as part of a fundamental rethink on how it serves its 1.4 million residents. As its current organisation strategy sets out, the aim is to become ‘the leading local authority for digital transformation in the country’.

We:

• Manage 186 apps across the organisation
• Managed 22,000 service requests last year
• Have 120 active projects
• Trained 3,700 people last year
• Support 180 sites
• Fixed 32,000 incidents and filtered 250 million spam emails in the past 12 months.

We use world-class suppliers and platforms, fuel organisational change – at pace – through modern, service-based technology solutions, and increase Essex County Council’s leadership presence in national technology initiatives.

Whoever joins the 180-strong team will have an unrivalled opportunity to drive a technological revolution within local government.

Essex Pension Fund

Join the Essex Pension Fund team and you’ll work alongside nearly 60 professionals providing a cradle-to-grave pension arrangement for 180,000 Local Government Pensions Scheme (LGPS) members across 700 organisations, including all Essex Local Authorities & Academy schools. The fund manages assets of £5 billion and provides a range of third-party services from full administration of pensions and payroll for both the uniformed services and teachers pensions schemes within Essex. You can learn more at https://www.essexpensionfund.co.uk/

Alternatively, to hear about careers in Essex Pension Fund, click here.

SELEP

We’re the accountable body for the South Essex Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) – a partnership between business, government and education. Enterprise is at the heart of everything we do. We work closely with central government and its key agencies to attract major investment into the South East and deliver significant economic growth.

SELEP is designed to forge a partnership which properly understands the economic challenges and opportunities of our area, and decide the priorities for investment in roads, buildings and facilities. Learn more here: https://www.southeastlep.com/

Legal & Assurance

The Legal and Assurance team provide expert support to all parts of the council and to external customers. Leaders pride themselves on making this a great place for excellent professionals to work. Staff enjoy work that is challenging, varied and always interesting.

The service includes legal advice, support to councillors and the statutory decision making process, as well as a range of assurance services which help the council have the right plans and processes to managing the risks it faces.

Legal

Essex Legal Services provide high quality, professional, legal advice across the Council and to increasing numbers of external clients, enabling them to make well informed decisions which positively impact on service delivery whilst meeting statutory requirements.

They work closely with senior leaders to make a real difference to the delivery of Essex Legal Services’ business and the business of our clients.

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.

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.