Mitchell Jones Email and Phone Number

As the Head of Business Planning & PMO I worked with the project team and stakeholders to ensure all aspects of the project team’s business planning are defined, planned and actively managed. This particularly includes all aspects of workforce planning and recruitment, budget management and supporting contract management.My key objectives were:• Led on all aspects of workforce planning and recruitment for the government’s Sizewell C project team (SZC) – including defining the people resources required for the project at different stages and identifying, recruiting, deploying, flexing and developing those resources to support successful delivery.• Led on all aspects of the budget management for the project, including developing effective systems to maintain robust, up to date forecast and actual's, and mitigate risks / maximise opportunities.• Led on the co-ordination of future spending review and business planning processes for the project – directly leading on RDEL and liaising with the Project Assurance and Sponsorship team on CDEL requirements.• Led on oversight and support for the contract management and procurement's across the project teams – liaising with commercial business partners, contract managers and suppliers to most effectively deliver requirements.• Provided visible and effective leadership across the project team – working collaboratively and positively with the project’s work-streams, HR, finance and commercial colleagues, suppliers and stakeholders to support the successful delivery of the project.• Contributed as a member of the project's leadership team – including developing relevant strategies, processes, and co-ordination, whilst shaping the overall design of the project management function as the project develops.

As programme finance manager for the Apprenticeship Service, I’ve led a team of five in covering all the business management functions. Over the past 2 years I was accountable for finance, managing a significant budget within 5% of our programme forecast whilst ensuring the service is adhering to government financial advice set out in managing public funds guidelines. I always ensured expert government financial advice is present to senior stakeholders and that effective governance is in place. I worked with stakeholders in creating strategic business plans/cases that lead on delivering the programme priorities all within budget. I was also accountable for several different areas within the service such as commercial, digital specialist resourcing, change management and contract management. Some of my key success are:• Leading a commercial transition which included re-procurement of our entire digital service portfolio (c. 6+ contracts, over 100 digital services, £35+ million overall value) onto new frameworks, ensuring key services are maintained, value for money is maximised all whilst not affecting delivery velocity.• Leading and overseeing the contract management of the apprenticeships commercial portfolio guaranteeing we are gaining value for money, holding suppliers to account via KPI’s whilst creating excellent working relationships to delivery key priorities. • Leading and re-designing our commercial portfolio to ensure continuity of the service all whilst abiding to cabinet office procurement guidelines. • Maximising the use of public funds to bring the service within its 5% accountability target for the first time on a highly volatile budget with huge variable components (budget c.£45m).

I started within the Apprenticeship Service as a PSO to support and contribute to the smooth delivery of projects within the delivery teams. Over two years my role and responsibilities grew and expanded to cover areas such as forecasting, governance, invoice payments and implementing change.Some of my key success was: • Successfully tracking against a significant budget (c£45m) creating excel cost models and trackers to ensure we keep within the approvals set by approved business cases• Leading on over 5+ financial & commercial cases which contributed into new business cases to ensure approval of over £10m for delivering key priorities set out by No10 and ministers • Leading my team in transitioning to a new commercial model, working with commercial partners to move away from our existing G-cloud contracts to new DOS contracts showing over £300k digital service savings in the first 4 months of transition • Leading on the Apprenticeship Service accruals, creating more efficient and robust ways to forecast accurate accrual figures, lowering our write off figures from c£500k to £18k in my first year • Ensuring all commercial paperwork such as Change Authorisation Notes and Statement of works was completed before deadline dates ensuring service continuity in addition to re-writing our deliverable, acceptance criteria and milestone to hold our suppliers accountable for the work delivered

Acting as a finance assistant working on several businesses around the west midlands. My main areas of responsibility were sale & purchase ledger, bank reconciliation, intercompany/group recharges, Accruals and prepayments, expense claims, profit variance, closing stock, intrastat’s and payroll including full payment submissions and pensions for multiple businesses. I also started month end accounts and end of year shut off in my final year. I was heavily involved in helping our finance director keeping stock take of one of the businesses due to recharging etc– I revamped the stock take early on in the role to suit our needs and helped in saving money for the business over the years.

My main responsibility was professional bookkeeping across multiple limited companies and charities – working on multiple accounting software I would focus mainly on sales & purchase ledger, expenses, wage journals, cash accounts in addition to ledger reconciliation. I was also heavily involved in liaising with multiple customers & directors in retrieving accounting records in addition to promoting what benefits the company had to offer.