Associate Director - Planning and Governance

Hours: Full time or Part time (minimum 0.8 FTE)

Context 

Responsible leading the development and continuous improvement of a strong governance framework across AHRC; ensuring that AHRC receives high quality and timely support, reporting, decision making, information and advice; establishing robust and efficient procedures and processes to ensure the smooth functioning of AHRC; providing assurance to the Senior Leadership Team and AHRC Council; leading on the maintenance of a continuous improvement culture across the organisation and supporting AHRC to transform its practices to ensure the effective and accountable management in the distribution of our funding; providing leadership on equality, diversity and inclusion and the embedding of EDI throughout all our processes and policy application.

Responsibilities

Governance: 

• Ensure AHRC has robust governance and decision-making arrangements in line with best practice, providing high-quality reporting, advice and guidance to colleagues on all AHRC governance matters
• Champion, embed and deliver effective risk and issue management.
• Oversee AHRC’s assurance activities, ensuring that robust assurance and internal control systems are implemented

Operations and Business Change:

• Lead the development and maintenance of a business continuity plan for AHRC working with UKRI BCM function
• Lead on creating new/ improving current operations for optimized efficiency and productivity.
• Lead on the introduction of changes driven by the UKRI Operating Model programme so they land successfully across AHRC.

Planning:

• Lead the development of operational plans, the oversight of strategic and operational performance management, and reporting progress in line with the agreed Delivery Plan.
• Oversee the successful operation and improvement of the AHRC quarterly business review process.
• Oversee the management staff resource requirements, deploying staffing to support successful delivery of AHRC’s mission and objectives

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: 

• Lead on embedding EDI in our approach to the design, assessment, and evaluation of funding opportunities.
• Lead on maturing our approach to becoming a learning organisation for EDI.
• Build trust with our communities, to be held accountable to the intentions of our EDI work.

Leadership: 

• Input to strategic decision making as part of the AHRC Executive Chair’s Directors Group and support staff across AHRC.
• Lead and inspire a diverse team to deliver strategically focused planning and governance activities 

Experience 

• Experience of leading and improving governance, decision making and risk management processes and functions on behalf of an Executive Leadership team
• Ability to solve problems, plan and manage multiple challenges through prioritisation and delegation
• Experience of planning and delivering business plans, projects and business change at pace
• Experience of working at a senior level with diverse internal and external stakeholders
• Experience of developing high performing teams to deliver high-quality and resilient business-as-usual operations
• Experience of building effective cross functional working relationships 

Additional information     

Developing talent:    

We are committed to developing employees in their roles throughout their career. Learning and development plans enable employees to continue their professional development through training and development opportunities such as e-learning, classroom training and on-the-job experiences. We encourage our employees to share their learning across teams and organisations.   

Benefits:     

UKRI can offer the successful candidate:  

- Flexible Working      

- 30 days annual leave + Public Holidays      

- Access to Civil Service Pension Scheme       

- Various everyday discounts through our dedicated provider 

For more information and to apply, please visit our Careers Pages.

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