Job vacancy: Corporate Governance and Risk Lead, NHS England, Cambridge

Job summary

Main area: Risk and Governance
Grade: NHS AfC: Band 8c
Contract: Secondment: 10 months (until 30 October 2026)
Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref: 990-EOE-19162-E

Employer: NHS England
Employer type: NHS
Site: Victoria House
Town: Cambridge
Salary: £76,965 - £88,682 per annum
Salary period: Yearly
Closing: 28/12/2025 23:59

Corporate Governance and Risk Lead

NHS AfC: Band 8c

Our Organisation

The NHS is building a culture that is positive, compassionate and inclusive – and we all have our part to play.

As employers we are committed to protecting and promoting the physical and mental health and wellbeing of all our colleagues. This underpins our values as set out in the NHS Constitution and supports us to be an Employer of Choice, while helping our colleagues to deliver high quality services for our patients and communities.

As a flexible employer, we want to support you to work in a way that is best for the NHS, our patients and you. Talk to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time, hybrid working or another flexible pattern. In addition, although the role advertised may have a ‘home’ office base indicated, we remain committed to supporting flexibility around workplace locations. If it works for the service, we will do our best to make it work for you.

We are an accredited Living Wage Employer which means that every colleague working for our organisation and third-party contractors will earn a real Living Wage. We are one of over 15,000 organisations, who voluntarily chose to pay the real Living Wage.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key responsibilities of the post include:

Establish and maintain procedures for the sound integrated governance of the Region including designing new reporting infrastructure
Support the Deputy Head of the Regional Business Unit in setting up new reporting, methodologies and processes for regional priorities and programmes.
Maintain the Region’s risk management policy and Core stream system including ownership of the risk register on behalf of the Regional Director
Provide advice and guidance to staff on governance, informational governance and risk and ensure best practice is adhered to Ownership of Region’s governance handbook and key corporate processes

You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.

Secondments

Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only, agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

Qualifications Educated to master’s level or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in specialist area

Knowledge and Experience

Essential criteria

Subject matter expertise across a number of key areas relating to risk and governance.
Evidence of post qualifying and continuing professional development.
Demonstrable senior management experience.
Must have an understanding of the background to and aims of current healthcare policy and appreciate the implications of this on engagement.
Should have an appreciation of the relationship between the Department of Health, NHS England/ NHS Improvement and individual provider and commissioning organisations.
Experience of delivering against competing priorities and deadlines while also directing the work of teams/individuals.
Experience of budgetary responsible, including budget setting with evidence of working knowledge of financial processes.
Management of staff/ functions.

Skills, Capabilities and Attributes

Essential criteria

Provide and receive highly complex, sensitive and contentious information, negotiate with senior stakeholders on difficult and controversial issues, and present complex and sensitive information to large and influential groups.
Negotiate on difficult and very complex and detailed issues.
Strategic thinking – ability to anticipate and resolve problems before they arise.
Problem solving skills and ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands.
Ability to analyse complex facts and situations and develop a range of options.
Takes decisions on difficult and contentious issues where there may be a number of courses of action.
Plans and organises a broad range of complex activities, formulating and adjusting plans to reflect changing circumstances.
Demonstrable ability to deliver at pace in complex environment.
Works with Stakeholders to develop performance improvement plans and to develop plans for innovation and opening up the market.

Values and Behaviours

Essential criteria

Commitment to and focused on quality, promotes high standards in all they do.
Able to make a connection between their work and the benefit to patients and the public.
Consistently looks to improve what they do, looks for successful tried and tested ways of working, and also seeks out innovation.
Demonstrable commitment to partnership working with a range of external organisations.
Demonstrates knowledge and understanding of equality of opportunity and diversity taking into account and being aware of how individual actions contribute to and make a difference to the equality agenda.
Ensures staff for whom the post holder has line management responsibility uphold and promote the equality and diversity agenda, and act in accordance with the equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace policy.
Demonstrates knowledge and understanding of equality of opportunity and diversity.

Other

Essential criteria

Ability to travel across sites where required.

Our commitments to you

We are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. We know that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better patient outcomes. We strive to ensure our people feel trusted, valued and empowered. We’re passionate about nurturing and developing people. When you join us, we want you to grow and excel, and we offer many opportunities for you to do that. We welcome your talent and enthusiasm irrespective of age, disability, neuro-divergence, sex, gender identity and gender expression, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or other personal circumstances. We have policies and procedures to ensure that all applicants are treated fairly and consistently at every stage of the recruitment process, including the consideration of reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability and/or who are neuro-divergent.

We welcome applications from disabled candidates. If you meet all the essential criteria, you will be guaranteed an interview.

Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role. Whilst we appreciate that you may have had support with your application (e.g., using AI technology or guidance from a trusted individual), it’s important that the information contained within your application reflects your own knowledge, skill, and experience and we trust that you apply on that basis.

If applying for this role on a secondment basis, please make sure you have obtained prior agreement from your current line manager to apply for this position.

Please note that we currently do not accept applications via recruitment agencies.

To comply with the HM Government Functional Standard GovS 007, and specifically the Personnel Security Standards 2024, individuals employed or contracted by NHS England may be required to undergo a Baseline Personnel Security Standards check, dependent on the role.

The NHS Business Services Authority is responsible for the processing of your application; a privacy notice is attached to advise you on how we will process your personal data.

If you have applied via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred third-party recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. If you are appointed to a post, information will also be transferred into the NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through NHS Jobs, and furthermore, as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any emails sent to us via NHS Jobs. If you have a query relating to your application, please contact the recruitment team on [email protected] or 0300 330 1369. You can view our Privacy Notice here.

NHS England