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Payroll Specialist

Employer
Essex County Council
Location
England, Essex, Chelmsford
Salary
£31944.0000 - £37582.0000 per annum
Closing date
4 Feb 2025
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Job Details

Payroll Specialist

Permanent, Part Time, 35 Hours Per Week

£31,944 to £37,582 Per Annum Full Time Equivalent

Location: Chelmsford

Working Style: Anywhere worker

Closing Date: 3rd February 2025

Please note this role is part time, 35 hours per week with a pro-rata salary of £30,217 to £35,550 per annum. This role requires office attendance 2-3 days per month.

The Role

The Payroll service sits within the People & Transformation function, to influence both the customer and employee experience in a key area of employee engagement. Providing a comprehensive service, investing in new technology to better support our users and enable an empowered self-service and support function.

The Payroll Specialist will contribute to the on-going development and delivery of the Payroll service operating model. Providing specialist advice and guidance in respect of all statutory requirements, across the Council and externally.

The role operates under tight financial constraints, ensuring excellence of service across the department by contributing to change management and ensuring the function is configured for continuous improvement.

To read more about our business area, please visit: People and Transformation

The Opportunity

A payroll specialist role in local government has several unique aspects due to the variety of contract types and roles. An understanding of specific regulations and policies is essential, particularly in relation to pension responsibilities and external legislative reporting. This role will support the payroll team with complex queries and assist senior managers with investigations and complaint resolution. Additionally, you will manage the mandatory reporting requirements to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).

You will have experience supporting and managing more junior colleagues, as this role will have managerial responsibilities from the outset. Proven experience as a payroll supervisor or in a similar role is required.

This opportunity is suited to an experienced payroller with a clear understanding of payroll laws, confident in handling the entire payroll process, including payroll administrative duties, statutory leave and pay, query resolution, payroll year-end, benefits in kind, and testing. Certified payroll qualifications are desirable,

Payroll regulations in the UK change frequently, so you are required to proactively stay up to date on any changes, as well as any contractual or employment amendments that affect ECC's employees.

As a payroll specialist, you will provide support for the ongoing development of the payroll system to ensure statutory compliance and contribute to service improvements.

Accountabilities

  • Supports the delivery of the Payroll service, providing advice and liaising with HMRC on tax matters, pension bodies and major statutory changes, taking account of compliance and risk.
  • Maintains an up to date knowledge of future statutory and legislative changes that will impact the service delivery to incorporate into local policies and procedures.
  • Responsible for promoting innovative approaches and delivering change in Payroll processes, to meet the business and organisational needs of customers.
  • Line management responsibilities and educating and support staff at all levels to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the payroll control environment, enabling accurate payroll data and compliance with statutory obligations including Pensions.
  • Responsible for delivering statutory changes, including requirements for system changes and delivery of developments.
  • Responsible for overseeing and delivery of projects and some annual or regular events such as monthly pension reports. In addition act as an escalation point for complex queries or complaints.
  • Responsible for meeting customer service standards to enable consistent adherence to both designed outcomes and agreed service levels, ensuring compliance with all external and internal regulation.
  • Deliver specialist technical Payroll advice and guidance across the Council to ensure compliance with legislation, policies and procedures.
  • Contribute to internal and external audits to monitor compliance with all ECC Payroll policies to enable the effective delivery of ECC's goals and first-class service.
  • Contribute to system and business requirement documents to enable efficient and effective solutions to be built as part of the Payroll function.
  • Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

The Experience You Will Bring

  • Evidence of continuing professional development and good knowledge in relevant professional area, with membership or working towards CIPP or demonstrable equivalent ability.
  • Significant experience in HMRC compliance and good working knowledge of Local Government Pension Scheme and Teachers Pension Scheme.
  • Good working knowledge of the complex, interdependent and wide-ranging business requirements of delivering a quality, best in class, Payroll Service.
  • Knowledge and understanding of complex pay and condition queries, including pensions, HMRC and other statutory requirements.
  • Proven experience in supporting innovative approaches to improving service delivery and value for money.
  • Ability to challenge, confidently advising across an organisation, based on professional knowledge.
  • Good experience of managing payroll systems including requirements gathering, development and testing

Why Essex?

As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Covering over 1,420 square miles and serving 1.8 million residents, we're committed to transformational change and delivering better quality at lower cost. Recognised in the top three of the latest IMPOWER index for productivity, we ensure everyone matters in Everyone's Essex. With flexible working options and a focus on innovation, whether you are looking to develop your career or contribute to the local community, Essex is the ideal place for you.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We're committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process.

We're also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join The Essex Talent Community

If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Further details can be found on our careers page.

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Company

Why Essex?

Essex County Council covers 1,300 square miles from Constable Country to the Thames Estuary. From the dynamic M11 corridor to the traditional seaside resorts of Clacton and Walton. England’s oldest town, Colchester, and two of its newest – Basildon and Harlow – are right here. Along with the City of Chelmsford, the county town, they form our major population centres. It means real choice and makes Essex the ideal place for your career.

We celebrate difference and work to ensure that no one is disadvantaged when accessing services, employment or public life in Essex. We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interviewing all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. We’re also committed to interviewing all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

Free to deliver big

We recruit creative, ambitious, talented people, and free them up to think – and deliver – big.

We’ve made substantial changes in recent years, reorganising how we’re structured and how we work, so we can protect the most vulnerable and enable our economy to grow. Join us and you’ll be trusted to take control, manage change and make a lasting impact. You’ll be able to call upon external partners and suppliers to help you deliver. More importantly, talented, trailblazing colleagues – including many industry-leaders – will be right by your side to share ideas, knowledge and experience.

Find out how Essex County Council is changing, and how you’ll fit in.

Employee Recognition & Engagement

Here are some of the things we have in place to give our employees a sense of belonging, involvement and recognition. 

Employee Networks:

  • Ethnically Diverse Employee Network (EDEN)
  • Carers Forum 
  • Christian Network 
  • Disabled Employees Network 
  • Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Network
  • Parents Network 
  • Women’s Network
  • Men’s Network
  • Young People and Apprentice Network. 

You Make The Difference’ Awards - giving employees the opportunity to nominate individuals or teams who go above and beyond for our residents.

Employee Surveys – where we listen to the voices of our people and take action on what we hear.

Employee Panels – giving you the opportunity to feed back on a range of policies and initiatives, network with colleagues and influence far-reaching changes.

Learning and Development

We have developed diverse learning opportunities to support our people to grow both personally and professionally. This includes:

  • A large suite of online training and tools
  • Dedicated learning events such as ‘LearnFest’ – our flagship annual celebration of learning
  • Apprenticeships for both new and existing colleagues
  • Financial support to achieve professional qualifications
  • Support from subject matter experts 
  • The opportunity to share your own expertise to up-skill colleagues
  • Leadership and executive coaching
  • Learning on demand
  • Career pathways

Rewards and Benefits

  • Family Friendly flexible Working
  • Generous holiday and special leave allowances (including the option to purchase extra holiday)
  • Local Government Pension Scheme
  • Life Assurance of three times annual salary
  • Volunteering leave (up to 4 days per year)
  • Employee wellbeing and counselling
  • Travel discounts & season ticket loans
  • Learning and Development opportunities/coaching & mentoring
  • Payment of professional fees for approved professions
  • Eye care vouchers
  • Lease car scheme (dependent on business needs)
  • Up to £8,000 relocation package (subject to terms and conditions)

You’ll also have access to MyReward, a unique platform for Essex County Council employees to gain various discounts and savings.

Your Wellbeing

At Essex County Council we are committed to supporting the wellbeing of our people. We work closely with our employees to provide wellbeing support based on their needs. We strive to enable the right environment, conditions, and behaviours so individual and organisational wellbeing is embedded in everything we do.

Join us and get Inspired to do More.

Company info
Website
Telephone
0845 743 0430
Location
County Hall
Market Road
Chelmsford
Essex
CM1 1QH
United Kingdom

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