Associate Director of Information Technology

About Our Client

The organisation is the UK-wide statutory regulator of around 114,000 members.

Our primary purpose is to protect patient safety and maintain public confidence in the profession. To achieve this, we register these professionals, set standards and investigate complaints about the professional's fitness to practise.

Job Description

Reporting to the COO, you will be responsible for overall IT strategy and IT delivery across the entire organisation, through:

Managing and maintaining a high-calibre IT team while promoting the vision for IT to support transformation and innovation across the organisation.Maintaining overall responsibility for the portfolio of programmes (applications, data, infrastructure) delivering IT strategy ensuring the strategy supports business objectives including ongoing development in response to the fast-changing business environment.Providing leadership and governance of IT architecture, ensuring alignment with standards and strategic direction, and actively prioritising competing programmes and projects.Leading IT change management, including developing, implementing and maintaining best practice change management strategies and frameworksLeading IT continuous improvement, including identifying and evaluating opportunities for business-led technological improvementsResponsible for setting IT budgets, acquiring and negotiating high-value IT contracts and managing external vendors, including establishing and maintaining value-based supplier relationships which meet business requirements.Lead the out-of-hours response to critical IT issues affecting infrastructure, security or online offer of the regulator 24x7x365.

Areas of Responsibility:

Leadership:

Develop and lead the IT function.
Member of the Senior Management Team (SMT)
Lead the IT team whilst maintaining and ensuring service quality and meeting IT Key Performance Indicators.
Ensure that IT audits and service improvement activities are appropriately managed.
Coach, develop and mentor IT managers & staff.
Ensure managers are accountable for the achievement of agreed plans.

Information Management:

Ensure information security is robust across the organisation and perform regular testing to prove and check controls.
Consult across all directorates to ensure the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is continuously developed to meet the changing needs of the organisation.
Ensure IT service meets agreed service level agreements.

Strategy:

Develop, implement and manage the IT strategy and associated budget.
Lead on building positive relationships with the key stakeholders in the business, ensuring that the IT Strategy and service continuously develops to meet business needs.
Make a major contribution to the development and delivery of the business strategy through the application of IT.
Demonstrate the contribution that technology can make to business objectives, defining strategy, validating business needs and considering the opportunities afforded by technology developments.

Planning and Budgeting:

Ensure plans for IT service improvements take account of current and forthcoming legislation & standards, the requirements of audit committees and best practices in the regulatory sector.
Plan and budget all major or strategic changes to the delivery of IT services.
Negotiate cross-functional resource availability with senior colleagues for business improvement projects.
Ensure detailed IT plans and budgets are in place and monitored through IT Steering groups and committees such as SLT.
Assist the Executive Director, Registration and Corporate Resources in business planning activity ensuring that final plans are cross-functional and coherent.

Delivery:

Take responsibility for the development, delivery and/or monitoring of the IT service delivery by key suppliers. Establish strong working relationships to improve cost-effectiveness, to assure value for money, delivery performance, customer satisfaction and innovation.
Ensure that robust contingency, risk management and business continuity plans are in place for the organisation's IT services. Maintain and enforce standards and protocols for the use of information and communication technologies across the organisation. Oversee the management of the IT risk registers. Ensuring risks are appropriately addressed and changing risk profiles are managed.

Performance Reporting:

Ensure that timely accurate reports are produced to map progress against agreed objectives.
Monitor SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and take remedial action where issues arise.
Produce reports for SLT, Council and Council Committees as appropriate.

Change Management and Quality:

Take responsibility for IT governance.
Set the strategy for monitoring and managing the performance of IT-related systems and services.
Manage the IT team.

The Successful Applicant

Essential Criteria:

The organisation will consider a Head of IT looking to develop their career and take on a leadership role.Experience of leadership in a senior IT management role - challenge others to develop as leaders whilst serving as a role model and mentor.Experience in managing a 21-strong multi-functional technically focused team, working independently across several sites who can manage conflict and communication problems.An understanding of ICT strategy, business technology and its application at all levels in this environment and the skills to think strategically, including:Developing ICT and information security strategiesDeveloping and maintaining the CRM system to meet the changing needs of the organisation.Interpreting and handling complex informationActing with political sensitivityDriving and engaging positively with change.Effective time management, demonstrable initiative, logical thinking and problem-solving.A solid understanding of project management methodologies, such as Prince 2, and how to scale them for all sizes of projects. Proven experience of the whole project life cycle, able to demonstrate the ability to operate in the initial conceptual design stage through to user acceptance testing and each stage between.

Proven project management experience and excellent people management skills, including:Team building & trainingImplementation of multidisciplinary workingPerformance managementChampioning equality and diversityFacilitating influencing styleA track record of success in IT transformation and integration of complex business processes in a regulated environment, involving detailed high-volume customer-facing transactionsDemonstrable business process analysis and re-engineering skills with the ability to transform the efficiency of administrative processes, including customer service transactions, maximising productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and transparency.Proven experience in IT strategic planning & objectives defining/achieving experience, in complex environments that are subject to significant ongoing change.Proven ability to architect, design and develop complex management information systemsExpertise in continuous improvement management including working knowledge of Lean, Kaizen operational processes and procedures.Experience working with a senior management team to develop business-focused IT and information security strategies that will effectively support their business needs.

What's on Offer

A competitive salary is to be discussed on a one-to-one basis.

25 days holiday annual leave, plus statutory holiday (8 days). Annual leave rises to 28 days after 2 years of service.Employer pension contribution of 10% if the employee contributes 5%.Income protection.Life Assurance.Childcare Scheme.Employee Assistance Programme.Cycle to work Scheme.Subsidised Gym Membership.Season ticket loan.Eye Care Vouchers.

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