Head of Performance Insight - Strategic Planning and Performance Insight - 80702 - Grade 8

Position Details

Strategic Planning and Performance Insight Office

University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
 
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £42,149 to £50,296. With potential progression once in post to £56,587 a year. 

Grade 8
  
Full time

Fixed term contract or a secondment for upto 31.12.2021 
 
Closing Date: 20th February 2022

Background

The Head of Performance Insight is a crucial management role within the Senior Management Team of the Strategic Planning and Performance Insight office.  You will be at the centre of our efforts to join up data across the institution in order to provide meaningful insight and advice about current and future performance.

You will join the Division at the very start of our new Strategic Framework. Launched in Autumn 2021 Birmingham 2030 sets out our ambition to be one of the world’s leading Universities. With world-class research and outstanding global education as our core mission, we will strive to increase the volume and quality of our research to make an even greater difference to the world around us. We will be the UK’s exemplary civic university, remaining firmly committed to our foundations in the highly diverse communities, people, and economy of the city of Birmingham and the West Midlands.

The Strategic Planning & Performance Insight Office exists to facilitate a rounded and informed narrative to advise on the strategic direction of the University. Working with colleagues across the University, the team connects a range of perspectives to support senior leaders in making well-informed and evidence-led decisions in the best strategic interests of the institution. We partner with colleagues across the University, and externally, to support action by pro-actively providing trusted advice and expertise, insightful analysis, and robust data. Our activity can be categorized into four broad segments: Data governance, capability and reporting, Policy, regulation and compliance, Institutional planning, and Institutional research (performance and strategy management).

Role Summary

The Performance Insight team plays a crucial part in in developing analysis and insight capability within the university, ensuring data-driven support and direction for the University Executive Board and the Colleges that make up the university. You will join the team at the start of the implementation of our new Strategic Framework, and at a time of significant expansion and change in the team, building capacity and capabilities to support increased reporting and business information to underpin the new framework.

You will manage a team of analysts with responsibility for analysing and understanding our student body, our research environment, our external environment, and our overall performance. You will enable the team to do excellent work and will create an environment for accurate, timely and effective data analysis and insight.

You will provide strategic leadership for the development of performance analysis and insight capability to meet the needs of key university stakeholder appropriately and effectively, including the University Executive Board, Senior Officers and College leadership.  This includes developing and providing evidence and analysis about performance and risk to monitor and support the delivery of the University Strategy.  You will have responsibility for ensuring that the University’s leadership has the appropriate intelligence to monitor progress against key strategic objectives and are provided with sufficiently sophisticated modelling to make informed decisions about the potential direction of travel against said priorities. Including the coordination and leadership for the Executive Board Performance Review sessions, which provide a mechanism through which strategies can be developed and progress measured.

Based with the Strategic Planning and Performance Insight, part of the Executive Support Division, you will work with senior leaders across the University. As part of the Strategic Planning and Performance Insight team you will work collaboratively to connect a range of perspectives and support and influence senior leaders in making well-informed and evidence-led decisions. You will be partner with colleagues across the University, and externally, to provide trusted advice and expertise, insightful analysis, and robust data.

The role requires both technical skills and generalist leadership experience. Intelligence, intellectual confidence, organizational understanding, strong analytical skills, and excellent communication skills are important contributors to success in this role. You will be comfortable and confident with quantitative and qualitative data, including financial data, performance indicators, budgets, and business plans. You will have meticulous attention to detail, be highly organized and yet flexible, with exceptional time management skills and the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously. You will have strong people skills and be able to liaise confidently and build productive relationships with senior members of the University Executive Board, Colleges, Schools, and Professional Services. You will be experienced at working collaboratively with technical and non-technical colleagues across divisions.

The University of Birmingham and our Professional Services

At Birmingham, we teach and research across the full breadth of academic disciplines, creating a vibrant community with multi-disciplinary opportunities for research and education. We are a truly international community, comprising more than 8,000 staff, 38,000 students, and over 350,000 alumni. The University is organised into five Colleges: Arts and Law, Engineering and Physical Sciences, Life and Environmental Sciences, Social Sciences, and Medical and Dental Sciences.

During the last decade, the University has been transformed. Our strong emphasis on intellectually rigorous education and pioneering research across the full breadth of disciplines has led our students to attain increasingly impressive outcomes, and our research has enjoyed growing global significance and societal impact.

The University’s Professional Services are led by the Registrar and Secretary. We aim for best-in-class Professional Services in support of the University’s academic mission. Across all of our Professional Services, we recognise that it is our people who are the heart of what we do, and so we are focussed on creating a culture for them to thrive. We support this through our sector-leading staff development programme: the Birmingham Professional .

Performance Insight is based in the Strategic Planning and Performance Insight Office, within the Executive Support Division . The Division is led by the Chief of Staff, and brings together the teams that support policy, planning, data analysis, governance, legal advice, and change management, for the University. We work closely with the Vice-Chancellor and the executive team. Teams in the division are involved in many aspects of the University’s work, and you will be able to draw on the advice and expertise of colleagues who understand and work with many parts of the institution.

Working for the University offers a wide range of benefits, including a generous annual leave entitlement and pension scheme, opportunities to join staff networks, formal and informal learning and development opportunities, and flexibility.

Main Duties

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent level qualifications) plus significant relevant practical experience – where no equivalent qualification is held substantial practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of progressively more demanding roles will be required.
• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C in English and Mathematics (or equivalent qualifications).  
• Highly numerate, with excellent analytical and statistical management skills. You must have the ability to assimilate and interpret complex data, both statistical and financial, within the political context of the institution and wider business; to propose developments in the use of data; and to have a sound understanding of how to exploit and present statistical data to inform University policy and decision making.
• Experience of managing and developing staff. You must create a motivating environment within the team, allowing people to be challenged, developed, encouraged, and supported to achieve outstanding results.  You should be able to prioritise activities in your area, develop short- and long-term plans and manage your and others’ workloads to deliver on institutional priorities.
• IT literate, skilled at exploring data, and able to use data to provide analysis and insight to the business. You should be knowledgeable about issues and developments in reporting and data management. You should know how to use technology to support the business and be comfortable working at the intersection between business requirements and technical requirements/limitations to deliver outputs and value.
• Demonstrable experience of successful collaborative working with cross-departmental groups to deliver value. You must understand your own expertise and contribution in this context and the contributions of others and take personal responsibility for tasks and projects. Cross- team project working is a key feature of the Planning Office, and you must be able to work effectively and collaboratively with others in such an environment.
• Project management skills (and ideally a qualification) with the ability to assess the value of proposals quickly and accurately and to prioritise work accordingly for the team to meet tight deadlines.
• Authoritative knowledge of the work practices, processes and procedures relevant to the role, including broader sector/commercial awareness.
• A commitment to promote and adhere to the agreed values of the University and the Executive Support Division.

For an informal conversation about the role, please contact Duncan Smith ([email protected] )

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment  

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working.