Interim Director of Health and Safety Services Candidate Information Pack
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Contents
Executive Summary
Executive Summary The Role Person Specification Relationships
The University of Birmingham is seeking a strategic Director of Health and Safety Services to lead the development and implementation of a comprehensive health and safety strategy across the institution. This pivotal role is central to fostering a safe, inclusive and high-performing environment for our students, staff and visitors. and as one of six heads of department within the HR function, the postholder will play a key role in shaping the strategic direction and priorities of the wider People and Culture agenda and the HR function. The Provost chairs the University Health and Safety Executive Committee, which is a formal committee of the University Reporting to the Director of People and Culture (with a dotted line to the Provost), Executive Board (UEB) and which provides assurances relating to H&S up to UEB and Council. As an inspiring leader and role model, the postholder will lead and motivate the existing Health and Safety Services team to ensure the delivery of a good service across all levels of the University. As importantly, the role will be a key catalyst and influencer on the University’s practices and behaviours associated with health and safety. This will demand a wide range of institutional outcomes such as robust approaches to governance and risk management, heightened management, and staff awareness and engagement around the health and safety agenda. Success in this role will require a dynamic balance of strategic leadership, operational oversight, policy development and relationship building.
The ideal candidate will bring a collaborative mindset and a proven ability to develop strategy, drive engagement and elevate awareness of health and safety across all levels of the organisation. Background The University of Birmingham is a global institution working within a diverse and vibrant City, offering an inspiring education to our students, and undertaking critically important research. We are a place of open, critical thinking, and the creation, sharing and dissemination of knowledge. Professional Services put students at the heart of all they do and enable an exceptional educational experience. They provide outstanding support to our researchers and help the University to grow its influence regionally, nationally, and globally. They ensure the University’s resources are used wisely, manage and improve the infrastructure which sits at the heart of the institution, and support decisions to be made quickly and based on sound evidence. Our Birmingham Professional programme operates across the University, supporting colleagues to network and collaborate, offering opportunities to learn and develop, contributing to the delivery of the University’s objectives, and helping everyone to understand the broader context within which we work. We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.
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About the University of Birmingham Birmingham 2030 Strategic Framework
Our University Community Research and Innovation Leadership and Governance Professional Services Our Estate Benefits How to Apply
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The Role
• Promote a robust institution-wide culture of awareness, engagement and continuous improvement in health and safety. • Represent and promote the University’s health and safety strategy and agenda to external agencies, partners and regulatory bodies. • Lead and manage the Health and Safety Services function, ensuring effective service delivery and team development. • Collaborate with senior leaders to embed health and safety considerations into broader strategic planning and operational decision making. Main duties • To consult on, develop and advocate a University wide strategy and policy position on matters of health and safety. • To advise the University Executive Board, Council and senior leadership team on the health and safety strategy and its university wide implication. • To put into place and manage appropriate governance on all regulatory and legal requirements associated with the health, safety and fire, with the aim of ensuring adherence to these standards. This is to include robust communication, awareness raising and staff training initiatives developed and championed by this role and the rest of the Health and Safety Services team. • To collaborate with key stakeholders across the University, such as Estates, Security, Internal Audit, Governance, Occupational Health, to deliver an integrated and university-wide approach to health and safety. • To promote and demonstrate a robust health and safety culture throughout the university, to include continuous improvement. • To ensure the effective and timely delivery of health and safety services through the management and development of the Head of Health and Safety and the wider Health and Safety Services team, and the delegated management of budgets. • To review existing health and safety system solutions and develop and implement a solution that is suitable for the range of activities at the University and that is able to further enhance the University’s ability to monitor and report across all aspects of health and safety. • To lead on the development and management of relationships with external agencies and enforcing authorities in relation to the health and safety agenda.
Department Overview Human Resources consists of a number of different directorates which provide strategic specialist and/or generalist support to the University. These include the HR Executive Office, the Central Staff Hub, HR Advisory Services, Health and Safety, People and Organisational Development, Strategic and Global, Equality, Inclusion and Wellbeing, and HR Systems. The role holder will manage a team of 7 staff encompassing specialists in management or stand-alone roles as well as an administrative staff member.
Job Title:
Director of Health and Safety Services
Department: Human Resources Responsible for Other Posts: 7 staff, 1 direct report Responsible to:
Director of People and Culture
Director of People and Culture
Strategic and Global HR Business Partner
Director of Health and Safety Services
Director of People and Organisational Development
Director of Employee Equality, Inclusion and Wellbeing
Director of HR Advisory Services Deputy HR Director
Director of Central Staff Hub Deputy HR Director
HR Executive Office
Head of Health and Safety Services
Health and Safety and Fire Safety Advisor
Health and Safety and Fire Safety Advisor
Health and Safety Advisor - Research (Chemical)
Health and Safety Advisor - Research (Bio)
Radiation Protection Officer
Decision Making/Problem Solving Without Reference to Others Authorisation of expenditure within prescribed budget limits.
Establishment and development of team capabilities and work direction. Provision of advice and guidance to University management and staff on matters pertaining to the health and safety agenda. Instruction and direction to management in the face of an imminent safety concern or regulatory breach. Relationship building with external agencies and enforcing authorities. Formulation of Health and Safety Strategy and principal programmes of activity. Formulation of health and safety initiatives and awareness raising activities. Overseeing the development of internal inspection and monitoring schedules and subsequent formulation of risk assessments on activities. Approval of Health and Safety Strategy and principal programmes of activity. Development and presentation of monitoring outcomes of the strategy with corresponding action plans for approval.
Safety Technician
Key Responsibilities • Develop and communicate the University’s health and safety strategy, aligned with institutional goals and values. • Lead the design and implementation of a comprehensive software solution to support all aspects of health and safety, including monitoring and reporting, risk assessments and compliance management. • Develop and manage the policy framework underpinning the University health and safety arrangements.
After Consulting Others
Refer Decision to Others
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Person Specification
University Staff
Engagement in health and safety strategy and activities through the effective use of email and online communications, and use of marketing and awareness raising tactics. Well-judged advice and guidance or, as required, the rapid procurement of such advice from specialists within the team. Formal contact with statutory and enforcing authorities. Proactive networking and engagement with the health and safety community within and outside the HE sector.
Knowledge, Skills and Experience • Substantial experience of health and safety management at a senior level in an organisation of equivalent size and scope (e.g. high-risk environments, clean areas, laboratories and workshops/heavy equipment). • Experience of shaping and delivering strategic health and safety initiatives at senior level, including cultural change and longer term planning. • Able to evidence the effective management and development of a diverse team including managers, specialists and general administrative staff. • Able to evidence successful relationship building across a diverse community including executive management, researchers and professional services staff. • Strong background in representing employer agenda and interests to external agencies/partners and enforcing agencies at local and national level. • Experience of operating in an organisational setting with a significant research and development focus and activity. • Appreciation of the UK Higher Education environment, its pressures, challenges and opportunities. • Confident written and oral communication skills, able to show experience of presenting to varied audiences- including at Board level. • Strong negotiation and influencing skills. • Experience of applying effective project management techniques and skills. • Proven experience of working with Occupational Health professionals to design and lead integrated and comprehensive approaches to workplace wellbeing and safety. • Experience in using data and analytics to inform decision making, identify trends and drive continuous improvement in health and safety performance.
External Parties
Our Shared Values Each professional services area will outline how the values apply in their area and the behaviours expected from colleagues to ensure we embed them in everything we do.
Ambitious
Innovative
Open
Collaborative Responsible
We are confident in the University of Birmingham and project this globally. We are focused on our goals, are clear about our strengths, and pursue our own direction. We are bold and take intelligent risks.
We enjoy being the first to do things. Inspired by our Birmingham heritage, we are resourceful, creative, grounded, and practical, and seek to make a real and positive difference to the world around us.
We welcome colleagues, collaborators, and students from across the world to work and study with us. We are committed to academic freedom, freedom of speech, and equality of opportunity for all. We expect everyone to act with sensitivity, respect, and fairness.
The major challenges facing our city, nation, and the world cannot be solved if we act alone. We enhance our research and education by pursuing creative partnerships within and beyond the University.
We operate with transparency, trust, and respect. We value our role as an anchor institution for Birmingham. We strive to be an excellent employer, to reduce inequalities in access to education, and to place sustainability at the heart of our work.
Communication and Engagement Skills Contact
Purpose/Skills Required
Director of People and Culture, Senior University Leadership, Member of University Council HR Senior Leadership Team (including Director of People and Culture)
Presentation of evidence and well-formed opinions on strategic risk assessments and programmed developments. Formal group presentations, report writing and effective use of statistical data is required to be successful.
Joint engagement on direction of HR and development of strategic plans. This requires the development of trusted relationships with immediate peers and the ability to apply broader knowledge of University priorities to the HR agenda.
HR Teams
Well judged advice and guidance or, as required, the rapid procurement of such advice from specialists within the team. Well-judged advice and guidance or, as required, the rapid procurement of such advice from specialists within the team. On rare occasions the ability to impose direction on actions of manager in the light of immediate risk or regulatory breaches without any deterioration of relationship.
Managers
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About the University of Birmingham
Birmingham 2030 Strategic Framework
The University of Birmingham was founded on the vision of Joseph Chamberlain in 1900 to provide a university for the people of Birmingham, ‘a great school of universal instruction… taking all knowledge in its province’. This philosophy has defined and shaped us as an institution for our city ever since, founded on equality of opportunity for all. We are proud to continue to find new expressions for these civic roots. The University is now a global institution, with our doors open, welcoming the best to Birmingham and taking the best of Birmingham to the world. Ranked 76th in the QS World University rankings, Birmingham is a member of the Russell Group and a founding member of the Universitas 21 global network of research universities. Numerous staff have received the most prestigious recognition within their fields, including Nobel Prizes. The quality of our research has grown significantly, as demonstrated in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework results, where we ranked 10th, having enjoyed the biggest rise of any institution in the Russell Group.
This success is continuing, with academics at Birmingham attracting in excess of £250m in research awards in the last academic year. We are the most targeted university in the UK by graduate employers. We have our own non-selective secondary school and sixth form serving the diverse communities of Birmingham and have a major campus in Dubai. We take our role seriously as an anchor institution for the UK’s diverse, youthful, and dynamic second city, and are one of the largest employers in the region. We played a central role in the success of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, and value our partnerships with local organisations including through our Civic University Agreement signed with Birmingham City Council and the West Midlands Combined Authority. Through The Exchange we have a city centre base from which to work with partners.
Through our Birmingham 2030 Strategic Framework we have set an aspiration to become a top 50 global institution. We recognise this is a genuinely challenging aim, which will require a vibrant, intellectually exciting, and diverse University community for research and education, working closely with our partners in a world class estate in Birmingham and around the world.
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.
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Our University Community
Research and Innovation
Our Railway Engineering group, which was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2017, has extensive collaborations with industry, including securing circa £15m investment through the Research Partnership Investment Fund. Our world-leading High Temperature Research Centre is built on a £60m investment from Rolls-Royce and this collaboration won the 2023 Queen’s Anniversary prize. We run one of the four national quantum technology hubs, an £80m initiative that focuses on technology transfer from fundamental science to application.
At Birmingham, we teach and research across the full breadth of academic disciplines, creating a vibrant community with multidisciplinary opportunities for research and education from Medicine to Music. We are a truly international community, comprising more than 10,000 staff, 41,000 students, and over 400,000 alumni. Our student community is not only one of the largest of any UK university, but also highly diverse, with 86% of our home undergraduate students from state schools, 43% from black, Asian or other minority ethnic backgrounds, and 36% in the first generation of their family to attend university. We have a diverse staff community: over one-third of our academic staff are from overseas, around 22% of
our staff are from black, Asian or other minority ethnic backgrounds, and 5% have a declared disability. Our most recent staff survey indicates levels of engagement and pride which most employers would be pleased to achieve, and we are committed to building on this through the inclusion of ‘people and culture’ as a core pillar of the Birmingham 2030 Strategic Framework. We value our diversity and aim to provide a welcoming and inclusive environment for all members of the University community. We believe our diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of our academic mission. We hold a Bronze Race Equality Charter Award and a Bronze Athena SWAN Charter Award at institutional level, with many school- level awards at both silver and bronze. Our ED&I activities are well supported and embedded across the University of Birmingham. Birmingham 2030 strengthens our commitment to sustainability as one of the core pillars of our activity. This includes using our research and education to make a major global contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a headline to be net zero by 2045 and a link to our Sustainability framework can be found here. We are active partners in Birmingham’s Tyseley Energy Park developing new technologies to contribute to Birmingham’s net zero ambitions.
The University is one of the UK’s most successful institutions in terms of research. In the latest Research Excellence Framework, we were placed 10th in terms of GPA, with the highest rise in position of any Russell Group university, and with significant improvements across the breadth of our disciplines – a genuine University-wide achievement. Our areas of research excellence are unusually comprehensive for a UK university, with a submission to 28 of a possible 34 Units of Assessment in the REF2021. The total value of research funding won by the University has grown rapidly in recent years, and we now have a portfolio of over 2,800 live projects with an award value to the University of over £900m. Our academic community achieves remarkable things. We have been integral to some of the greatest scientific discoveries of recent times, such as the discovery of the Higgs boson particle and the detection of gravitational waves. We enjoy world-class expertise in areas as diverse as mental health, Shakespeare studies, global maternal health, formulation engineering, quantum technology, psychology, water science, air pollution, corpus linguistics, inter-faith understanding, and character education. Our robust industrial partnerships support enterprise and innovation across several sectors, working with companies as diverse as Siemens, AstraZeneca, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and drawing on our innovation assets such as the Birmingham Health Innovation Campus and the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Ansty, near Coventry.
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Leadership and Governance
Professional Services
The governing body of the University is the Council, which comprises 24 members, most of whom are lay members external to the University. The University has a strong working relationship between the Council and the executive, and our recent Council effectiveness review commended the ‘strong sense of there being “one team” across non-executives, executives and staff and student members’. The University Executive Board (UEB) is the senior leadership team of the University and a Committee of Council. It is chaired by the Vice-Chancellor and its membership is shown here: Leadership - University of Birmingham.
The University is organised into five academic colleges, each of which consists of several schools and departments. Each College is led by a Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Head of College who is a member of the University Executive Board. The five colleges are: Arts and Law, Engineering and Physical Sciences, Life and Environmental Sciences, Medicine and Health, and Social Sciences. To bring together the senior academic and Professional Services leadership across the University, there is a University Leadership Group (ULG) led by the Vice- Chancellor, which meets weekly and has regular strategy away days. The Director of Campus Services is a member of ULG.
The University of Birmingham has fully unified Professional Services, led by the Registrar and Secretary, and Chief Operating Officer, who is supported by the Registrar’s Leadership Group (RLG), made up of the Directors of Professional Services (Senior Officers) and the College Directors of Operations. The Registrar and Secretary is the University’s Chief Operating Officer, reporting to the Vice- Chancellor and Principal. The Director of Campus Services is a member of RLG. We aim for high quality 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 have a sector-leading staff development programme: The Birmingham Professional, supported by a longstanding Graduate Management Trainee programme: Graduate Training Scheme. Many of our senior leaders are also closely involved with professional sector networks and representative bodies. We look to the national and international higher education sector, and beyond, to identify best practice. We compare our efficiency and effectiveness in Professional Services with other Russell Group and similar international universities in Australia, New Zealand and North America as part of the Uniforum benchmarking consortium. These insights allow us to understand and adopt global best practice. For example, we have recently adopted a University-wide approach to the functional co-ordination of services connecting local with central support, with each Senior Officer acting as Functional Co-Ordinator for the area.
We undertake an ongoing programme of service development in light of sector trends and in response to user feedback. As a result, we have made significant progress in recent years resulting in measurable improvements in user satisfaction and efficiency in several areas.
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Our Estate
Our estate is large and varied covering more than 600 acres, with over 200 buildings of different ages, complexities, physical condition and use, ranging from Grade I and II listed properties to brand new state of the art learning and research spaces. Our heritage as the original ‘redbrick’ is combined with an ambitious agenda to continue the transformation of the University. Over the last 10 years we have undertaken a £1 billion renewal of the campus estate including a new School of Engineering, Molecular Sciences, new Library, Sports Centre, Teaching & Learning Building, Hotel and Conference Centre and The Green Heart – an attractive parkland in the centre of campus. Our beautiful, green Edgbaston campus is a short train ride, or a 30-minute canal walk from Birmingham city centre. We have a wide range of historic and modern buildings and spaces for our students, staff and visitors to enjoy, including the landmark original red-brick Aston Webb Building and Clock Tower, and its Grade II listed Great
Hall, plus our cultural attractions such as the Lapworth Museum of Geology and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, a leading art gallery and concert hall set within its Grade I listed building. Winterbourne House is a unique heritage attraction, an example of Edwardian Arts and Craft splendour set within seven acres of beautiful botanic gardens. The Green Heart is a beautiful space that opens up views across the whole campus, as envisaged in the 1920s, to create a sustainable, natural and environmentally friendly landscape; both for people and wildlife. As part of our global strategy, we have recently opened a new state of the art purpose-built campus in Dubai Academic City, with plans to grow the community to 3,500 students. The new campus seamlessly fuses the historic Aston Webb buildings in Birmingham with the cultural richness and architectural beauty of Arabic heritage. Campus - University of Birmingham Dubai.
2045 Campus Vision
In collaboration with our staff, students, partners and neighbours, we have developed the 2045 Campus Vision. Working with renowned international architects KPF we have produced a vision which provides broad framework of ideas for how the University’s estate could be developed over the next two decades and beyond. It will steer our decisions and provide the flexibility to adapt, embrace new technologies and sustainability approaches, and navigate new challenges. You can learn more here: 2045 Campus Vision - University of Birmingham
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Benefits
Benefits Include:
• An attractive salary, which is reflective of the role. • 40 days annual leave per year (pro-rata for part time staff), including eight bank holidays and seven university closed days. • USS pension scheme. • Access to ongoing professional development. • Family friendly policies: on-site nurseries, flex working, enhanced maternity/paternity. • Health & Wellbeing: private health/ dental options, discounted gym and EAP (Employee assistance). • Extensive discounts and special offers.
A breakdown of benefits can be seen at Staff benefits - University of Birmingham
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How to Apply
For a confidential briefing conversation about this opportunity, please contact the University’s retained partners at The Management Recruitment Group: Sian Gardiner sian.gardiner@mrgglobal.com To apply, please submit a CV along with a short supporting statement that sets out your interest in the role and highlights pertinent experience/expertise that you would bring to the position.
Applications and enquires should be submitted to: sian.gardiner@mrgglobal.com
Recruitment Programme
The closing date for applications is Sunday 2nd November 2025. The formal stages at the University of Birmingham are scheduled for w/c 17th November 2025.
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