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Head of Legal and Governance Services

Employer
Oxfordshire County Council
Location
Oxfordshire
Salary
up to £106,600 (& generous benefits)
Closing date
10 Feb 2025
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Job Details

Head of Legal and Governance Services
Salary up to £106,600 (& generous benefits)
Closing date Monday 10th February 23.55

Together we’re the moment makers

Together, we’re raising the bar in legal services. Together, we’re all creating lasting change to people’s lives in Oxfordshire.

Oxfordshire County Council is seeking an innovative and highly skilled professional to lead its Legal and Governance Services as Head of Legal and Governance. This critical role, acting as the council’s Deputy Monitoring Officer, is central to ensuring the effective delivery of high-quality services that enable the council to operate transparently, lawfully, and with integrity.

As Head of Legal and Governance Services, you will provide expert advice to elected members and senior officers on a wide range of legal, constitutional, and governance matters. Supporting the Monitoring Officer, you will play a key role in ensuring the council’s decision-making processes are robust, legally compliant, and reflective of best practices. You will promote a culture of progressive thinking and performance underpinned by a strong governance and ethical standards across the organisation.

Your responsibilities will include leading and developing a large talented team (of circa 100) including  legal, democratic, and governance professionals, delivering services that meet the highest standards of quality and efficiency. You will oversee the provision of legal advice on complex matters, manage the council’s democratic processes, and ensure compliance with statutory and constitutional requirements. Additionally, you will embrace innovation, exploring the use of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to enhance the council’s legal and governance functions and ensure Oxfordshire’s services remain fit for the future.

The successful candidate will be a qualified solicitor, barrister, or chartered legal executive with substantial post-qualification experience (with a current practising certificate) and a comprehensive understanding of the legal and governance framework within local government. You will have a proven track record of delivering strategic legal advice in a complex organisational environment, along with experience in managing democratic processes and supporting senior leaders in navigating challenging governance issues.

We are looking for a forward-thinking and collaborative leader who can combine legal and governance expertise with a progressive vision for service delivery. Your ability to lead and inspire teams, build strong relationships, and manage complexity will be critical. This is a demanding but highly rewarding role, offering the opportunity to make a lasting impact on Oxfordshire’s governance and legal services.

Together, we’re the moment makers and we’re focussed on making every day the best it can be for our residents. Whatever you do here, you’ll look around and say, “I make a difference”, because we’re all creating lasting change to people’s lives in Oxfordshire.

Everyday you’ll be challenged in a new way, supported by your team, in an organisation that is free thinking, flexible, and helps people achieve their ambitions. We’re not afraid to do things differently and our dynamic culture means this is a place where new ideas are embraced, and innovation thrives.

We believe that together, our differences make us stronger, and that diversity is the foundation for innovation. Here, you can create a unique career for yourself – while raising the bar for the future of UK public services.

Our Agile Working Policy ensures you enjoy flexible working arrangements, allowing you to balance your professional and personal life effectively operating on a hybrid model, based in Oxford.

If all of this excites you, then visit our campaign site by clicking apply below or speak to our recruitment partners at Hays

Simon Winspear 07525 466 357 / simon.winspear@hays/com
Lottie Williams 0203 465 0141 / lottie.williams@hays.com

Oxfordshire County Council is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion in employment, and we welcome applications from all members of the community.

We would particularly like to encourage applications from individuals from a multi-ethnic background, who are currently under-represented at a senior level within our organisation. At Oxfordshire, we strive to create a workplace that reflects our region, where everyone is valued and empowered to be themselves.

Company

Thank you for your interest in joining our team at Oxfordshire County Council. You’re potentially just a few steps away from the best career decision you’ll ever make. With exciting changes in the local government environment coming soon, it’s the perfect moment to join us.

You may already know that we're the local authority for Oxfordshire, committed to delivering top quality services and value for money on behalf of the county's 800,000+ residents. These services range from museums and libraries to the disposal of waste, from the maintenance of our roads to the provision of adult and children’s social care services. We employ almost 5,500 people to deliver those services.

Here are some of the things that you might not know about us:

  • We received a Best Companies 1 Star accreditation in 2024 with a focus on Wellbeing, Fair Deal, and My Manager.
  • We were ranked the 9th Best Big Company to Work for in the UK in 2024 by Best Companies.
  • We were ranked the 6th Best Not-for-Profit Body to Work for in the UK in 2024 by Best Companies.

What makes us special?

Whatever you do, you’ll be able to look around and say, “I made a difference”. Because we’re all bringing lasting change to people’s lives in Oxfordshire. Every day, you’ll be challenged in a new way, supported by your team, in an organisation that is free-thinking, flexible, and helps people achieve their ambitions. Working for us, you can create a unique career for yourself – while raising the bar for the future of the UK public sector, together.

Our focus for the past year has been shaping our organisation to be successful and sustainable for the future. We’re on a journey to Deliver the Future Together and become:

  • An employer of choice, where everyone recommends working here
  • A partner of choice, nurturing purposeful relationships with partners who feel well supported by us
  • A place shaper of choice, where we act as a convener across public, private and community groups to shape and lead an ambitious and more equal future for our place and our residents

Delivering the Future Together

We’re on an exciting journey to Deliver the Future Together. By embracing change and new ways of working, we’ll secure a successful and sustainable future and achieve our goals of becoming an employer, partner and place shaper of choice.

Our future challenges

As we move into the future, the nature of the challenges we face and how we respond will be very different. Having leaders that can create and lead an organisation that is forward thinking, collaborative, and inclusive, which embraces continuous improvement and holds itself to account will be important in addressing these challenges.

Leading through our values and behaviours

Our values are at the heart of all we do here at Oxfordshire County Council. We all share a common purpose to deliver excellence for the residents of Oxfordshire. Our 5 values act as a guide to how the organisation and our people should approach everything we do. Leading through these values every day, putting them front and centre of every behaviour, decision and action will unite us as we strive to deliver this excellence together. By doing this we will attract and retain great talent, we will reward great performance, we will create a positive environment where people can thrive and grow, we will nurture talent and create excellent leaders for now and the future.

Our purpose

We’re proud of the job we do and the communities we serve. We provide over 800,000 local people and businesses with day-to-day services they can trust. Join us and help shape the future for Oxfordshire.

How we work

With us you'll get the care and support you need to develop. If you like a bit of variety, or thrive on innovation, then you’re in the right place. We’ll give you plenty of opportunities to make your job as different and interesting as possible.

Your career journey

We need the best from our team and want them to enjoy what they do. Coaching and mentoring schemes, regular one-to-ones, on the job training and review, and an online portal to help you manage your own development - it’s all designed to help you grow in your role.

Financial perks

We offer competitive pay and up to 32 days paid holiday every year, with the chance to buy more. You’ll also be enrolled into our pension scheme where we contribute 19.9 per cent. For some roles there is also help with relocation expenses and settling in costs. Our bike and green car purchase schemes also make moving around financially flexible.

Family friendly

Family comes first, that’s why we’ve built a range of different benefits to support you. As well as our flexible ways of working around the role you do, you can make the most of our maternity and paternity schemes, and tax-saving childcare vouchers. But family isn’t just about the kids. If you have elderly relatives to care for, we’ll help out there too.

Rewards and recognition

With Vivup highfive, our colleague recognition scheme, we celebrate success across the organisation. Vivup also gives great savings on holidays, insurance, eating out and more.

Health and wellbeing

Wellbeing is a big priority for us. You’ll get access to a range of different support opportunities such as our round the clock employee assistance programme. Salary Finance is also on-hand to help with financial wellbeing. There’s also the chance to manage your health and wellbeing through regular one-to-one sessions and team meetings.

The environment

We’re committed to Oxfordshire becoming net-zero by 2030 and enabling us to be carbon neutral before 2050. Our Climate Action Framework sets out how we will tackle climate change. We’re also signed-up to the UN’s Race to Zero, a global campaign to bring individuals, businesses, and the public sector together to fight the climate crisis.

Feeling inspired? Join us and help us shape our 2025 moments and beyond!

Company info
Website
Telephone
01865 792422
Location
County Hall
New Road
Oxfordshire
United Kingdom

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