Deputy Director of Corporate Affairs

Job content

Accountable to the Director of Corporate Affairs & Company Secretary, the post holder will work as part of the Corporate Affairs Directorate leadership team, be responsible for leading on the development of corporate affairs and for managing, embedding and maintaining high corporate affairs and governance standards to include, though not exclusively, risk; compliance, reputation and assurance management extending to oversight of same through directorate structures where they have direct relevance to corporate governance; compliance; risk and assurance frameworks.

The post holder will deputise for the Director of Corporate Affairs & Company Secretary (‘the Executive Director’) when required which will entail working with the Board of Directors, its committees and the Executive Team in fulfilling corporate affairs functions. This will require the post holder to be confident in providing advice and the best course of action surrounding highly complex, and sometimes extremely sensitive and contentious situations.

Supporting the Executive Director with compliance with relevant legal, constitutional and regulatory requirements, and whilst managing the Corporate Governance and risk team; the postholder will lead delivery of the broader corporate affairs portfolio. The post holder will be responsible for ensuring there are robust processes and systems in place to operate such duties and achieve best practice and safeguard the provision of effective integrated governance arrangements.

• To support the Director of Corporate Affairs and Company Secretary in promoting and deploying innovation and quality improvement as a core component of the Trust’s legal, constitutional and regulatory compliance and risk requirements.
• To provide vision and leadership and hold managerial responsibility for developing a programme of work to support the Director of Corporate Affairs with regard to delivery of an assurance framework for compliance with the CQC’s ‘Trust-wide’ assessment of well-led. This is in respect of the assessment of the leadership and governance at Trust Board and Executive Team level, and organization wide corporate governance.
• To support the Director of Corporate Affairs and Company Secretary design and deliver a ‘True For Us’ assessment framework utilising national inquiries, cross industry governance failures, national coroners reports and other national incident and inspection data in order to learn from and improve the Trust’s risk and control environment and enhance its assurance frameworks.
• To represent the Director of Corporate Affairs and Company Secretary as necessary, Directors and the CEO at external events when required.
• To lead and develop the effectiveness of the Council of Governors and lead development of the Foundation Trust Membership to ensure best practice is at the heart of what we do and that we are inclusive and engaging in order to support a representative Council and Membership.

About Oxford Health NHS FT

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has been rated as Good by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

We are a responsive and innovative Foundation Trust that places our values of Caring, Safe and Excellent at the heart of everything we do. We take great pride in our staff and believe that investing in you is key to us achieving our vision of outstanding care delivered by outstanding people.

You will have real enthusiasm and a long-term vision for developing quality-focused assurance and compliance systems to support the Corporate Affairs Directorate’s ambition to implement best practice ‘well led’ assurance and compliance arrangements. You will be able to work across multi-disciplinary teams to influence and gain support from our leaders throughout the organisation and will bring a wide range of relevant and transferable experience, whether gained in a corporate governance or service and quality governance leadership roles.

The successful candidate will have a friendly and supportive approach, and skills in delegation, supervision, developing and improving teams are all key; together with strong analytical, communication and influencing skills and personal resilience.

In return for your commitment and expertise, the role offers a wide range of training and development opportunities, variety, influence and a real opportunity to make a difference for our staff and patients.

• To support the Director of Corporate Affairs and Company Secretary in promoting and deploying innovation and quality improvement as a core component of the Trust’s legal, constitutional and regulatory requirements, including the frequent review of the Trust’s Constitution, Standing Orders, Scheme of Delegation and Integrated Governance Framework.
• To provide vision and leadership and hold managerial responsibility for developing a programme of work to support the Director of Corporate Affairs with regard to delivery of an assurance framework for compliance with the CQC’s ‘Trust-wide’ assessment of well-led. This is in respect of the assessment of the leadership and governance at Trust Board and Executive Team level, and organization wide corporate governance. Liaising as necessary with the Chief Nurse and team so not to confuse accountabilities with regard to CQC compliance and inspections.
• To support the Director of Corporate Affairs and Company Secretary design and deliver a ‘True For Us’ assessment framework to encourage active curiosity, through external review, self-assessment and peer review and support continuous improvement across the domains of ‘Well Led’ as determined by Regulators managing actions in relation to the outcome of such reviews. Utilising national inquiries, cross industry governance failures, national coroners reports and other national incident and inspection data in order to learn from and improve the Trust’s risk and control environment and enhance its assurance frameworks.
• To represent the Director of Corporate Affairs and Company Secretary as necessary, Directors and the CEO at external events when required.
• To lead and develop the effectiveness of the Council of Governors (and its relationship with governance and with the Board) and lead development of the Foundation Trust Membership to ensure best practice is at the heart of what we do and that we are inclusive and engaging in order to support a representative Council and Membership.
• To lead on the development of a career and personal development framework in support of the Trust-wide administrative workforce to be underpinned with strong systems for career development pathways and recognition mechanisms working collaboratively with Learning and Development Team colleagues and through collaborations with educational partners such that OHFT is the employer of choice and a great place to work.
• To lead the development of relationships with the Health and Scrutiny Committee and Health and Wellbeing Board to ensure we have influence over their agenda
• To lead the development, completion and publication of the Trust’s Annual Report as part of the Annual Report and Accounts submission to the Regulators and to Parliament making it a more accessible document for its intended audiences.
• Assume responsibility for the development and delivery of high quality corporate affairs, governance, risk, compliance, reputation and assurance processes in line with broad professional, academic and best practice policies, and relevant service developments. Working in partnership with the Quality Improvement Team to ensure QI is embedded as a core component of all change, innovation and improvement activities across the Corporate Affairs directorate