Head of Governance

About the Role

The Head of Governance is a key role within Governance, Compliance and Legal Services (GCLS), responsible for delivering effective and efficient governance across the Open University. Your influencing and collaboration skills are key as you are providing direct support to the University’s most senior governing bodies (e.g. Council, Senate) while overseeing standards in governance bodies whose management is delegated to other areas. The Governance Team also supports institutional compliance through reporting on regulatory requirements and managing the business continuity framework.

As a member of the GCLS senior leadership team, you will work closely with the University Secretary, and report to the Director of GCLS.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide professional leadership for the University's governance arrangements, including strategic support and insight to the University Secretary and Director of GCLS.
• Manage the effective performance and experience of the University’s governance culture, systems, structures and processes, including leading on committee planning and governance effectiveness reviews.
• Manage committee membership, including elections, appointments, inductions and development, ensuring appropriate and sufficient representation of constituent bodies.
• Oversee the annual cycle of business, managing the induction and development of committee members and enhancing governance across the University.
• Ensure that all committees operate effectively, facilitating internal and external effectiveness reviews and audits as appropriate and ensuring the implementation of recommendations.
• Be responsible for the standards for committee servicing across the committee secretary network ensuring they are maintained to the highest level through the provision of information, advice, training, reporting and proactive auditing of practice.
• Ensure institutional compliance with external regulatory requirements and best practice as they relate to governance.
• Support institutional compliance with external regulatory and legislative requirements, including through oversight of Prevent reporting and oversight of internal reporting on OfS compliance.
• Working with the University Secretary, oversee the University’s approach to business continuity, providing assurance and oversight of institution-wide and local plans.
• Provide leadership and people management of a professional services team creating a culture of growth, inclusive working practices, high engagement and motivation.
• Work with the GCLS senior leadership team on joint delivery of the Unit Business Plan, People Plan, objectives and KPIs.

About You

• Comprehensive understanding of higher education governance within the UK and demonstrable experience of servicing formal committees.
• Understanding of the higher education regulatory and legislative context in the UK, including the OfS’s regulatory requirements.
• Experience of managing an operational service delivery team and a commitment to excellent customer service.
• Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail with the ability to work to tight and/or changing deadlines and achieve required outcomes.
• A proven ability to build successful relationships and networks within a large, complex organisation.
• Proven ability for strategic thinking, problem solving, innovating and embedding new ways of working within a team.
• High capability for working on own initiative, exercising judgement across a broad area of responsibility with effective communication skills adaptable to a range of internal and external audiences.
• Personal integrity with the capacity for a high level of discretion, diplomacy, tact and resilience.

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 1 day per week.

Next steps in the Recruitment process

We anticipate that we will be conducting interviews for this role during the week commencing 23 March 2026.

Early closing date notification

While most roles will remain open until the advertised closing date, applications may be reviewed on an ongoing basis. In some cases, vacancies may close earlier if a sufficient number of suitable applications has been received and equality impacts have been appropriately considered. All roles will remain advertised for a minimum of one week before any early closure is implemented. If you have started an application or were in the process of applying when the advert closed, we encourage you to get in touch. We are committed to understanding individual circumstances and can offer further support where needed, including reasonable adjustments for applicants with protected characteristics.

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 criteria for this role as detailed above within 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.