Head of Digital Governance

Key Responsibilities

Enterprise digital governance and operating model stewardship

Lead the application and integration of enterprise governance frameworks within digital services, ensuring digital decisions align with organisational strategy, values and regulatory expectations.
Partner with the Governance Directorate to align digital governance with corporate policy, risk and audit requirements, ensuring clear roles, no duplication of controls and consistent assurance across the organisation.
Lead governance for the responsible and controlled use of AI within digital delivery, setting clear guardrails for permitted use, assurance thresholds and exception management, and ensuring AI usage supports lawful, ethical and auditable decision making.
Translate organisational strategy into clear governance guardrails, enabling consistent, disciplined decision making across change, run and assurance activities.
Challenge and escalate where exceptions erode the operating model, preventing informal or precedent setting decisions from undermining control.
Own the lifecycle of governance exceptions, ensuring deviations are time bound, documented, actively monitored and closed, and do not become precedent or erode the operating model.

Policy, standards and lifecycle control

Lead the digital policy and standards lifecycle, ensuring policies are current, proportionate and applied consistently.
Ensure governance controls remain practical and usable, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy while maintaining assurance and compliance.

Risk management, audit and inspection readiness

Oversee digital risk management and assurance arrangements, ensuring risks are identified, understood and actively managed.
Lead audit and inspection readiness across the digital portfolio, ensuring findings are addressed and assurance improves over time.
Monitor emerging regulatory, assurance and audit expectations, adapting governance frameworks proactively to avoid reactive control changes.
Make digital risk and trade offs explicit, supporting timely and informed executive decision making

Change governance and decision control

Lead digital change governance and decision control, ensuring initiatives progress with appropriate approval, evidence and discipline.
Exercise authority to pause, stop or defer digital decisions and change activity where governance, risk, assurance or regulatory thresholds are not met, escalating appropriately to protect organisational control and decision quality.

Contract, procurement and asset stewardship

Own the full lifecycle governance of digital contracts, ensuring procurement, performance management and exit decisions support value for money and accountability.
Ensure robust asset management for digital hardware and software, maintaining accurate visibility, control and compliance.

Performance, value for money and reporting

Ensure clear and consistent performance and budget reporting for digital services, enabling transparent oversight and informed challenge.
Drive performance improvement and value for money discipline, ensuring investment decisions demonstrate benefit and sustainability.

Governance communication and organisational understanding

Lead clear governance communication, ensuring expectations, decisions and controls are understood by delivery teams and leaders.
Build organisational understanding of governance purpose, positioning governance as an enabler of better decisions rather than a barrier.

Leadership, culture and resource stewardship

Build and lead a high performing digital governance function, modelling values led, proportionate and confident governance behaviour.
Set expectations for professional conduct, accountability and decision quality, intervening where behaviours undermine control or integrity.
Ensure that you follow and keep up to date with all relevant Notting Hill Genesis and statutory policies and related procedures including health and safety and financial regulations.
Hybrid arrangements - at least two days in an office working with others.
Depending on work and interactions required working from home may be possible one day a week.

Essential knowledge, experience and skills including qualifications and professional membership

Senior experience providing governance, risk, assurance or commercial oversight in complex, regulated environments.
Strong understanding of policy, risk management, audit and contractual governance.
Proven ability to challenge constructively, escalate appropriately and protect decision quality.
Experience working with senior leaders across digital delivery, operations, data and security functions.
A recognised governance, management or related professional qualification, or equivalent experience, demonstrating capability to operate with integrity, judgement and accountability.
Advanced IT and systems skills including Microsoft office (delete as appropriate)
GCS is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy