Senior Manager, Governance & Resilience

Job Location:  Milton Keynes, Remote/Hybrid

Weekly Working Hours:  37

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About the Role

The Senior Manager, Governance and Resilience, is a key role within the Governance team as part of the Governance, Compliance and Legal Services (GCLS) unit. Working collaboratively, the post-holder provides project, corporate and academic governance and relationship management support to key groups and committees across the University, supporting a range of stakeholders to achieve organisational resilience and promote good governance practice.

Maintaining an awareness of the changing policy and regulatory environment, the post-holder contributes to the sustainability and delivery of business continuity and crisis management across the University, as well as to the development and promotion of efficient and effective governance. Providing expert advice on business continuity and resilience to stakeholders across a variety of Units will be an important feature of this role, supporting the University Secretary in overseeing the organisational approach to business continuity and resilience and in ensuring all relevant plans remain current and are regularly tested. In addition, the postholder will promote good governance practice across the University, providing a full secretariat service to formal committees within the University’s governance structure, as well as provide management support to other advisory groups.

Key Responsibilities

Management of business continuity & resilience activity

• Provide assurance & oversight of Business Continuity activity, working with departmental leads to ensure that plans are in place, validated, tested & reviewed appropriately.
• Maintain & annually review the Business Continuity Policy & Framework, ensuring they are aligned to professional standards & embedded within strategic & operational planning activities.
• Review & update (at least annually) the Crisis Management Plan & list of key contacts.
• Organise & manage one-off and annual exercises to test existing business continuity & resilience plans. 

Enabling good governance & reviewing governance effectiveness

• Support the delivery of the objectives of the Governance Team & the GCLS unit, building collaborative relationships across the University to enable clear institutional accountability through effective, efficient, & compliant corporate & academic governance.
• Lead on the continuous review & development of processes, policies & guidance owned by the Governance Team, ensuring they remain fit for purpose in line with sector best practice.

Provision of advice & guidance

• Maintain effective communication & engagement with key internal & external stakeholders & planning communities which is customer focussed, collaborative, transparent & drives continuous improvement.
• Provision of strategic advice to the Crisis Management Team (when in place) & undertake a lessons learned exercise post-incident/crisis.
• Maintain & develop the business continuity hub as an important source of information, training & resources for staff. Oversee the production, development & review of training materials, templates, & guidance for use in formal governance settings across the University, as well as for business continuity purposes.
• Provision of advice and guidance on business continuity & governance issues, contributing to increased awareness of both areas & ensuring the adoption of best practice across the University. Monitor legal & regulatory developments in relation to business continuity & resilience.
• Awareness of the HE policy environment, especially as it applies to the four Nations in the UK, & of trends in governance.
• Draft committee papers & policy documents, communicating complex issues clearly & fluently to a range of audiences.

Committee servicing and business planning

• Chair the Business Continuity Operations Group, and work with the secretariat support to ensure the timely provision of information to this Group.
• Provide management support to a range of other management and advisory groups such as the Crisis Management Team, ensuring that they consider relevant business in a timely manner.
• Provision of effective secretariat support to formal committees within the University’s governance structure and to any other formal committees or informal groups as required. Manage all activities associated with such committees, working closely with committee chairs and subject specialists to ensure business is conducted transparently and efficiently and in line with relevant schemes of delegation and standing orders.
• Lead on the recruitment and induction of external committee members, developing induction materials and ensuring that committee members are supported to discharge their responsibilities.
• Oversee processes to ensure that committees across the University are operating in accordance with their terms of reference and conduct appropriate reviews of their business and effectiveness.

Staff management and development

• Line or matrix management of team members and responsibility for appraisal and development.

About You

Essential:

• Knowledge of the University’s strategic, regulatory, and financial context, and the risks it faces to resilience of its business operations.
• Demonstrable experience of business continuity, incident response or risk management, and governance in a similar organisation e.g. education, public sector, charity.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to identify, analyse, interpret, and present complex information effectively, to comment on its significance, and to develop proposals for action.
• Experience of process development or redesign and improvement.
• Demonstrable experience of managing working groups or committees efficiently and effectively, with a high level of discretion over sensitive and confidential issues.
• Proven experience of managing and developing staff.
• Experience of working collaboratively and as part of a team, with the ability to pull together the right people to achieve results through pro-active development of internal and external networks.
• Excellent communication skills including ability to draft papers clearly and convincingly as well as deliver training and workshops to groups of colleagues.
• Ability to take a holistic view of problems and to develop creative and pragmatic solutions, often under pressure and with limited or ill-defined information.
• Ability to plan, schedule and manage a range of complex tasks and projects simultaneously, on time, within budget and to agreed standards.
• High degree of integrity, credibility and resilience coping with ambiguity and change at the last minute.
• Well-motivated, with an ability to work on own initiative and to exercise judgment within area of responsibility.

Desirable:

• Evidence of ongoing professional development in areas relating to business continuity, crisis response or risk management. A certification in one of these areas would be advantageous but not essential.
• Demonstrable understanding of and ability to uphold The Open University’s mission and statutory duties, including widening participation and equality of opportunity, in accordance with academic freedom, freedom of speech and relevant legal obligations.

Support with your application

If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.

What's in it for you?

At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).

Flexible working

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.

It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d expect this to be on average 2 times per month.

Next steps in the Recruitment process

We anticipate that interviews for this role will be taking place online via Microsoft Teams during the week commencing 16 March 2026.

Early closing date notification

We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.

How to apply

To apply for this role please submit the following documents:

• CV
• A personal statement of up to 1000 words. You should set out in your statement why you are interested in the role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the essential requirements for this role as detailed in the job description.

You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.

The Open University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion which is reflected in our mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. We aim to foster a diverse and inclusive environment so that all in our OU community can reach their potential.  We recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and culture, and that this difference brings great strength. We strive to recruit, retain and develop the careers of a diverse pool of students and staff, and particularly encourage applications from all underrepresented groups. We also aspire to make The Open University a supportive workplace for all through our policies, services and staff networks.