Welcome

ODS is a Doing Good company and we need another 'do gooder' as our Head of Management Accounting.

Incorporated in 2018, ODS had previously built a track record of success as part of Oxford City Council, running public services and selling some of these business to business. Property repairs and maintenance, construction, highways and engineering, waste and recycling, street cleansing, parks management and the list goes on. This is what we do. Selling these services was Oxford’s answer to austerity. Innovative. Unique? Successful.

In this way we built a £9m turnover external business. Not the cheapest, but good quality and our customers kept coming back for more. The profits? Given back to our Shareholder Oxford City Council and reinvested back into public services. Services often needed by the most vulnerable people. Doing Good, right?

With this success came a challenge. Constrained by the limits of trading an organisation can do as part of a Council, we also saw the growth opportunity in the region. We wanted a bigger piece of it. Why – because we care about what goes on in our region and want to provide high quality services here. We also saw the opportunity for more profit – more Doing Good. We have a large local workforce who live and work in the area, so they care. We care about them too, such as paying everyone at least the Oxford Living Wage.

For us, the future is bright. We have exciting plans for further growth, depot relocation, the electrification of our fleet and the mobilisation and further modernisation of our business. And we need someone who can help lead within the Finance team. For the foreseeable future, this is where we need your entire energy and passion.

We’re meeting the challenge of moving from local authority accounting to business partnering in a commercial context whilst still taking into account the special dynamic between ODS and Oxford City Council as its sole shareholder and main client. So this needs a very experienced senior leader to own and continue the work. You might be stepping up into your first senior management role, that’s fine by us. You might want a little flexibility in hours or your working pattern. That’s also fine.

But, our must haves are your in depth finance business partnering experience ideally gained in another Local Authority Trading Company or local authority, from the ground up, and understanding the context of the sector we come from. You will know what excellent finance support looks like and how to embed this effectively to inform the decision making of the company.

You will also use your finance business savvy and nous to ensure we optimise the legitimate opportunities of great financial management and make a significant contribution to the future growth of the business.

Gregor Budde
Director of Finance