Head of Executive Governance

at  Department for Business and Trade

JOB SUMMARY

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is the department for economic growth. We support businesses to invest, grow and export, creating jobs and opportunities across the country.
We are looking for a Head of Executive Governance to join the Secretariat to play a leading role in managing a high-quality service to the Permanent Secretary and DBT’s senior leadership.
The Secretariat sits at the heart of DBT in the Strategy and Private Office directorate. We oversee the Department’s governance framework and provide strategic and logistical support to the Departmental Board, Executive Committee, and their subcommittees.
The successful candidate will need to operate collaboratively as part of the wider leadership team of the Secretariat, including taking a flexible, professional approach to planning, resourcing and prioritisation to ensure a high level of service is maintained across the Secretariat, with work fairly balanced across the whole team, and with an important focus maintained on the wellbeing and development of staff.
Upholding high standards of governance is a responsibility for this role, operating with integrity and observing the confidential nature of some of the work and ensuring that the principles of good governance are upheld.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The post-holder will work to the Department’s Executive Committee (ExCo) and its subcommittees, ensuring the Department’s strategic priorities are gripped and delivered.
The Executive Committee meets fortnightly and is chaired by the Permanent Secretary. Its core membership is Directors General (DGs) and Permanent Secretaries. ExCo oversees operational strategy and ensures the effective management of the Department. It makes decisions on sensitive, time-critical, operational and policy implementation issues that involve cross directorate or group trade-offs and/or have a cross departmental impact.
The three subcommittees are: Performance and Risk Committee, Investment Committee and People Committee. A Shadow People Committee, brings in a greater diversity of voices into the Department’s decision-making processes. Subcommittees are chaired by DGs and members are Directors.
The successful candidate will develop a strategic understanding of the Department’s priorities and will use that awareness to ensure the Committee is appropriately engaged across the breadth of the Department’s work.

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES AND SKILLS

The successful candidate will take pride in directing a high performing team with a culture of exceptional customer service and continuous improvement. They will be responsible for ensuring that a high quality of service for the Executive Committee and subcommittees is maintained. This includes direct delivery and delivering through others and they will:
Build and manage close relationships with senior leaders across DBT and work collaboratively with internal teams to provide high quality service and products to the committees.
Operate collaboratively as part of the wider Secretariat leadership team, taking a flexible, professional approach to planning, resourcing and prioritisation to ensure a high level of Secretariat service is maintained, with work fairly balanced across the whole team, and with a focus maintained on the wellbeing and development of staff.
Lead and line manage five colleagues (a Senior Executive Officer, three Higher Executive Officers and an Executive Officer). Demonstrating inclusive leadership skills and the ability to motivate and manage a diverse team to deliver at pace on a demanding and complex agenda.
Direct delivery and delivery through others, ensuring that: agendas reflect the Department’s priorities and are focused on the key collectively owned decisions that must be taken.
Ensure papers are appropriately commissioned and quality assured, ensuring that the committees have the right material upon which to base decisions.
Ensure actions are accurately recorded, agreed, commissioned and the delivery is tracked, with issues reported in a timely manner.
Ensure high quality minutes are accurately recorded, produced, agreed and circulated within agreed timescales.
Provide detailed, timely and high quality advice the Permanent Secretary and other senior leaders to ensure effective oversight of compliance with governance standards and integrity and effective implementation of a programme of continuous improvement in the quality of service.

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Operational Delivery