Artificial Intelligence Governance Lead WCC

Salary range: £58,299 - £79,410 per annum. Salary negotiable depending upon experience

Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP

Hours per week: 36.00

Contract type: Permanent

Closing date: 10 October 2026

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF 809 CONNECTED BUSINESSES
Digital and Innovation in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories, where creative and enterprising people put local residents and businesses first.

Today, Westminster is the most connected borough in London. But, when David joined us in the mid-2010s, small businesses were still struggling to get connected to fibre. Without gigabit-capable broadband, some companies even resorted to biking memory sticks around the city, simply to share files with clients.

Although still in a junior role, David took the initiative and successfully made the business case for £2.8 million of European funding to support connectivity for small businesses across Westminster. Feedback from businesses has been overwhelmingly positive as the project has enhanced their communications with clients. The new connectivity allows them to make video calls and work remotely. As the pandemic hit and many more people needed to work from home, it became clear just how vital this investment had been.

Fast-forward a few years. Westminster is leading the way for connectivity, as a result of the project businesses are thriving, and David is heading up a service of his own responsible for delivery of the Smart City strategy.

As AI Governance Lead you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster's success. Providing strategic leadership for the Council's AI Governance Framework, it will be your task to ensure that AI adoption is safe, ethical, legally compliant and aligned to corporate priorities, public-sector expectations and our ambitions. Designing, leading and working to assure proportionate AI risk classification, governance and approval processes, and ensuring relevant cases receive the correct amount of scrutiny, you'll also evaluate the risks of proposed and existing AI.

Defining and maintaining governance standards, templates, controls and guidance for delivery teams, and writing papers, recommendations and decisions for senior boards and forums, we'll expect you to maintain oversight of compliance, assurance outcomes and audit findings. Working to integrate AI governance with the Council's wider data, information and technology governance arrangements, we'll also expect you to set expectations for data ownership, stewardship, classification, lineage, retention, quality and use, and embed requirements into strategic procurement, programme delivery, architecture review, service transition and operational change.

You’ll have a number of additional responsibilities - these include maintaining records, aligning governance activities across different teams, and providing practical advice that enables your colleagues to meet the necessary requirements and resolve issues promptly. Delivering targeted support that improves our AI capabilities, you'll coordinate the investigation and resolution of any issues that arise, monitor changes in legislation, regulation and public-sector guidance, and help our senior leaders make informed decisions by producing strategic reports on risks, controls, compliance, benefits, assurance trends and governance maturity.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

To be a success in this varied and fast-moving role you should have significant experience of leading or maturing AI, data, information or technology governance in a complex, regulated organisation, and be capable of translating legal, regulatory and organisational…