Payroll assistant at Larkfield Care Homes
About 55 minutes. Included in Plus.
Payroll closes at noon tomorrow. Check a week of extra hours against timesheets, approvals and the policy, answer a worried colleague honestly, and give your manager the exceptions she must decide.
Skills: Check extra hours against timesheets, approvals and policy; Calculate normal and time and a half pay correctly; Explain held pay honestly to the person affected; Keep decisions within payroll authority and escalate the rest
Management consultant at Larkspur Partners
About 85 minutes. Included in Plus.
A client's finance director has told his board that closing a depot will save 3.04 million pounds a year. Rebuild the savings from the client's own data, tell the steering committee the true number in a deck, and correct it again when a depot manager's figure turns out to be wrong.
Skills: Separate costs that end from costs that move; Build a savings and payback model from client data; Present an unwelcome number answer first; Handle a client sponsor's expectations with evidence; Revise analysis openly when data changes
Investor relations manager at Thornbury Industrial plc
About 75 minutes. Included in Plus.
The internal profit forecast has slipped below what analysts expect, and the company is in its close period. Work out whether the gap triggers the disclosure committee, answer an analyst and a big shareholder without signalling anything, and act fast when the share price moves for no reason.
Skills: Calculate consensus by a defined method; Recognise when a forecast gap triggers disclosure governance; Decline investor requests in a close period without signalling; Spot signs of a leak and escalate at once; Prepare announcement questions and answers within published information
Fundraising officer at Kestrel Valley Wildlife Trust
About 75 minutes. Included in Plus.
Check two months of donations for the Gift Aid claim, then tell a major donor that the project she funded has been cancelled and give her a real choice, and report both to the fundraising committee.
Skills: Apply Gift Aid rules donation by donation; Handle restricted funds within charity rules; Give a major donor bad news and a real choice; Report figures and decisions to a committee
Procurement officer at Eastmoor District Council
About 85 minutes. Included in Plus.
Four bids for a three year grounds contract. Score them exactly as published, deal with a price that looks too low and a panel member's late declaration, recommend an award within the rules, and handle the people who want to know the result early.
Skills: Apply a published evaluation method exactly; Investigate an abnormally low bid against the specification; Handle a late conflict of interest and recalculate; Recommend an award within budget and approval rules; Handle councillors and bidders within procurement rules