Statutory Returns Officer

Department: Academic Services

Location: London, Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds Campus (On-site)

Type of Contract: Permanent 

Working Pattern: Full Time (40hrs per week)

Salary Range: £38,000-£42,000pa

GBS is a higher education provider offering a range of sector-relevant courses across ten campuses in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. Working in partnership with several of the UK's leading higher education providers, we deliver vocational, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in finance, accounting, business, construction, tourism, healthcare, and more.

Our Vision: Changing lives through education.

What We Do: The Statutory Returns department is a specialised unit within the broader registry operations. It holds primary responsibility for reporting to regulatory and data designated bodies such as HESA and OfS. The team is the central authority on statutory data, proactively collaborating with internal staff and external stakeholders to ensure accuracy and compliance.

The role: The Statutory Returns Officer reports to the Head of Statutory Returns within the Statutory Returns team. This team is a subset of the larger registry team, which encompasses various functions including planning statutory returns, providing training, and auditing the maintenance of student records. The Statutory Returns Officer is tasked with proactive engagement, both internally with staff and externally with key stakeholders, possessing authoritative knowledge of statutory reporting requirements to regulatory bodies such as OfS, HESA, and others.

Please note, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this position.

What the role involves:

• Involved with the production of student related statutory external returns for the Office for Students and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).
• Working with departments across GBS to communicate the data collection requirements for statutory returns.
• Ensuring the maintenance and monitoring of data quality within the student records system, specifically auditing data relevant to external returns. Collaborating with other departments to address and resolve any issues identified during the auditing process.
• Where data quality issues exist; review processes and liaise with the relevant teams to improve processes and prevent persistent issues from occurring in the future.
• Work alongside colleagues across the institution to help evaluate if processes relating to data collection are meeting statutory requirements and to monitor data quality (with regards to external returns) within the student records.
• Attending webinars to ensure knowledge is up to date and assist with disseminating this to staff across Global Banking School for information related to statutory HE returns.
• Monitoring the web sites and publications of HESA, OfS and other relevant agencies for new, and changed, data reporting requirements, performance indicators, etc.
• Training of staff across the institution with regards to statutory requirements and how their areas of work feed into them
• Build positive relationships with other professional services teams and academic staff and to coordinate and liaise regularly with key stakeholders in designated departments.
• Use initiative and judgement to solve day-to-day problems with flexibility and timeliness.

What Experience/Skills are required:

• Degree or equivalent professional qualification. 
• Knowledge and experience of HESES, HESA, Graduate Outcomes or NSS returns. 
• Knowledge of data quality checking processes. 
• Successful experience of working with users at different levels to resolve issues with processes or data systems. 
• Experience of operating Excel at an advanced level. 
• Proactive approach to problem solving, including a curiosity to investigate issues and find solutions. 
• Ability to provide courteous and high standards of customer service. 
• High level of personal integrity and confidentiality and a strong attention to detail. 
• Ability to work effectively as a team member. 
• Ability to work flexibly to meet changing needs. 
• Commitment to own learning and development. 
• Excellent record of attendance and punctuality.

Desirable Experience/Skills:

• A sound understanding of the relational database model and its implementation.
• Effective skills in statistical analysis and data modelling.

What We Offer:

• 25 days annual leave, plus 8 public holidays
• 1-day extra leave per year of service, up to a maximum of 5 days
• Workplace pension scheme
• Tuition reimbursement for career development courses
• Flexible Benefits: Cycle to Work, Workplace Nursery, Techscheme and much more
• discounts platform, wellbeing centre and much more
• Reward and recognition programme
• £500 award employee referral scheme
• Discretionary annual performance bonus

GBS supported my development by enrolling me in an external Leadership and Management course, which equipped me with the tools to drive my team towards continued growth and success. Before joining GBS, I did not envision myself as a manager, but I have now found my passion in leadership.  — Ebony Bates (Professional Services Employee)

GBS is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and providing a workplace free from discrimination or harassment. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and communities. We take our core values seriously and work hard to create an environment where everyone feels welcomed.