Senior Officer Capital , Finance and Risk; COO

This role can be based from any of the following Arts Council offices (with hybrid working):
Birmingham, Manchester, Brighton or Cambridge

Arts Council England delivers a range of capital investment programmes which contribute to the outcomes of Let’s Create, our 10-year strategy. Capital Investment Programmes are programmes that invest in assets or infrastructure to support the long-term sustainability of creative and cultural organisations across England.

Led by the Director, Capital, the Capital team is made up of 3 sub-teams:

• Investment – focused on the design of investment programmes and associated assessment and advice giving.
• Relationships and Monitoring – focused on stakeholder engagement and monitoring of risk, compliance and overall delivery of our Capital investment.
• Cultural Development Fund – focused on the delivery of this specific fund in conjunction with Area based colleagues.

Working closely with the Operations Team, you will support the wider capital team by analysing the financial performance and risks of individual capital investments, and by supporting the monitoring and reporting of risks, ensuring a consistent approach across our capital investment programmes to protect our investment.

You will complete assurance activities on individual capital investments, as set out in the agreed Assurance Framework for the capital programmes, to ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of the grant agreements and to inform our performance reporting to relevant internal or external governance bodies.

You will support the continuous improvement of operational processes to enable effective coordination and planning of activities across the capital team, including performance reporting, risk management, assurance, and compliance, ensuring alignment with our commitments to DCMS and Arts Council priorities.

As part of your role, you will contribute to the following:

• Provide regular analyses and reports on the financial performance and risk status of the capital programmes, drawing out insights to inform the Senior Management Team of the programme as well as current and future policy development.
• Support the Relationship & Monitoring Team on analysing the financial performance and risks of individual capital grants and ensure that mitigating actions and monitoring are agreed to demonstrate that appropriate controls are in place and that the stated processes for monitoring investment are being followed.
• Line manage any appropriately allocated role to a high standard as required, enabling the postholder to deliver their objectives successfully.
• Set out a schedule for assurance sampling of post-event assurance of individual capital investments as outlined in the agreed Capital Assurance Framework.
• Support the Senior Management Team, preparing analyses and reports on the impact of potential investment decisions.
• Assist in the monitoring of capital funding agreements, supporting the Relationship and Monitoring Team with progress meetings as required and ensuring thorough programme-level reporting and management of finances and risk.
• Quality assure risk assessments written by the Relationship and Monitoring Team, advising where appropriate action or interventions may need to be considered.
• Working with the Senior Manager, Capital Operations, provide reporting and insights on compliance against our monitoring requirements, informing our reporting and assurance processes to the DCMS and the overall management of the programme.
• Ensure financial compliance is embedded into our ways of working and grant management processes, meeting government functional standards.
• Working with the Senior Officer, Capital Training and Advice, provide training, briefings, support, guidance documents and advice internally and externally on performance management and risk assessment.
• Bring a continuous improvement approach to your work, and stay up to date on developments around finance, risk and grant making, ensuring best practice as well as maintaining accurate records and working within our regulatory, policy, systems and procedural framework governing information use.
• Use digital and data tools…