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We're passionate about great service and we ask ourselves, what can we do to put our passengers and freight users at the centre of everything we do? With this in mind, we pull together as one industry because we care about people and teamwork is key. For more information about Network Rail click here.

Scotland's Railway covers a large geographical area from the Borders to Thurso at the far tip of the North East of Scotland, accounting for almost 20 per cent of the UK rail network. We provide rapid access along busy commuter routes to our seven cities, servicing the varied needs of our business and leisure commuter services, including cross border services and rural services.  We have up to 50 freight services operating every day and we are steadily building capacity for this to grow.

Brief Description          

We have an exciting opportunity for a forward-thinking Head of Governance Risk Assurance. To be successful you will develop and deliver a strategic vision and direction for governance, risk, assurance and improvement for Scotland’s Railway.

About the role 

As the Head of Governance Risk Assurance, reporting directly to the Finance Director, you will develop and lead the strategic vision for the governance, risk, assurance for Scotland’s Railway.

You will lead the delivery of the Network Rail strategic vision and direction for governance, risk, assurance to enable deliver on commitments both internally and for external stakeholders through the determination process for each Control Period (CP).  

There is a strong bias towards improvement and the successful candidate will champion continuous improvement across the business, ensuring that there are robust systems and process in place to systematically identity, allocate and manage improvements and efficiency opportunities across the whole organisation, supporting our ambitions to continually improve what we do to support our customers and deliver value for the taxpayer. Along with directing the corporate governance, assurance and improvement forums the successful candidate will ensure strategic business objectives are met.

Other duties include:

• Lead and develop the implementation of the Regional governance framework and management system guaranteeing internal Network Rail policy and external regulatory requirements are adhered to maintaining risk to acceptable levels and delivering on commitments to all key internal and external stakeholders. 

• Lead the region enterprise risk portfolio focussed on the key threats and opportunities to the achievement of the regions strategic plan. Direct the reduction in exposure with robust plans to keep threats within appetite thresholds and maximise the benefits of opportunities.

• Lead and manage the effective implementation and delivery of the assurance framework to maintain a ‘three line of defence’ assurance model and to provide customer confidence and protect business reputation.

• Manage the development and delivery of the Region audit plan, including integration and support of the Network Rail business audit interventions, corporate Safety Functional Audit and corporate Internal Audit activity to maintain the three lines of defence required to protect business reputation and customer confidence.

• Direct and maintain the development of the desired quality culture throughout the Region to maintain legal compliance and the adoption of best practise through good governance, stakeholder confidence through effective assurance and structured improvement to achieve efficiencies internally and through the supply chain. Direct the development and manage the deployment of relevant quality measures and controls to monitor quality across the Region.

• Drive organisation learning through the provision of governance, risk and assurance knowledge management and supporting lessons learnt systems/process.

• Provide expert support and guidance to the Region on issues regarding governance, risk, assurance and improvement to achieve the desired levels of performance.

As a senior leader within the finance function, contribute towards the wider improvement of our customer service ethos and work with the heads of other services (financial management, capital investment and property) to ensure a coherent and consistent culture and supportive workplace environment.

Do you have?

• A Chartered Quality Professional or an equivalent in the fields of governance, risk and assurance

• Able to demonstrate significant governance, risk and assurance experience in a large and complex multidisciplinary organisation

• Able to demonstrate expert knowledge and experience at a senior level in the successful delivery of governance, assurance and improvement in a large and complex multidisciplinary organisation

• Proven interpersonal skills, possessing the ability to maintain credibility and influence people at all levels within a large complex organisation, up to and including executive level as well as diverse senior stakeholders

• Proven strong commercial awareness and financially astute

• Demonstrable good knowledge and experience of managing appropriate system certifications in a complex business (e.g. ISO 9001, 14001, OHSAS 18001, BS 11000)

Whilst not essential it would be good if you have:

Good knowledge of railway operational and contractual practices

• Lead auditor qualified

​Salary: Starting at £90,035 and rising to £101,289 per annum

Network Rail Benefits – To find out about what benefits we offer, click here

Closing date: 18 February 2021. Late applications will not be accepted. Please get your application in as soon as possible, we may close the advert before the listed closing date if we receive enough applications. 

All offers of employment are conditional upon satisfactory completion of pre-employment checks. Click here for more information

Keeping people safe on the railway is at the heart of everything we do. Safe behaviour is therefore a requirement of working for Network Rail.  You should demonstrate your personal dedication to safety on your application.

We are a Disability Confident Leader employer!

We are also an equal opportunity employer and encourage people to work flexibly. We welcome applications from everyone. Click here for more information

To ensure an improved representation in our workforce, applications are particularly welcome from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people, females, LGBTQi+ people and people with disabilities.

Due to current restrictions for COVID-19 it is likely that our process in dealing with your application will be delayed, however please note that we are continuing to conduct our interviews on-line.

For successful candidates we accept there may be delays with start dates to ensure that we can safely on-board each new employee. 

We will contact you to let you know whether your application has been affected and inform you of any further changes within the recruitment processs.