Business Operations Manager

Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council; Dudley; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Dudley Council is seeking an experienced operational leader to join our Corporate Business Operations & Support function. This key role turns strategic direction into delivery, deputising for the Business Operations & Corporate Support Lead and overseeing executive and senior leadership support, member and mayoral support, and governance activity.

You will balance demand, deploy resources across teams, monitor performance, and drive digital-enabled improvements to services.

Qualifications

• Significant experience leading or managing business operations or corporate support in complex professional services.

Responsibilities

• Deputise for the Business Operations & Corporate Support Lead, providing operational leadership and continuity across the function.
• Lead day-to-day coordination of executive and senior leadership support, ensuring meetings, briefings, papers, actions and follow-up activity are managed to timescales.
• Oversee member and mayoral support arrangements, ensuring professional, confidential and politically impartial support.
• Manage statutory information activity, including Freedom of Information, Environmental Information Regulations and Subject Access requests, with statutory timescales.
• Coordinate corporate governance and business activity, including forward plans, decision and action logs, risk and issue registers, audit trails and records management.
• Manage workloads and deploy resources flexibly across teams in response to changing priorities and service pressures.
• Monitor service performance, demand, workloads and quality, producing management information and insight for assurance and decision-making.
• Support development and continuous improvement of operating models, processes, systems and ways of working, identifying opportunities to improve customer experience.
• Champion the effective use of digital technology, data and automation to improve productivity and management information quality.
• Build effective relationships with senior leaders, elected members, corporate services and operational teams, promoting a collaborative One Council approach.

Skills

Operational leadership

Corporate support

Governance & compliance

Stakeholder management

Statutory information

Team development

Performance analysis

Digital enablement

Job description

Dudley Council is seeking an experienced and highly capable operational leader to join our Corporate Business Operations & Support function at an important point in the Council's improvement journey. This is a key management role responsible for turning strategic direction into effective day-to-day delivery. Working directly to the Business Operations & Corporate Support Lead, you will oversee a broad range of high-profile corporate support activity, including executive and senior leadership support, member and mayoral support, statutory information requests, corporate governance activity and wider business operations. You will play a central role in ensuring the function is professional, responsive and resilient, with the ability to flex resources around changing organisational priorities and demand.

• Deputise for the Business Operations & Corporate Support Lead, providing operational leadership and continuity across the function.
• Lead the day-to-day coordination of executive and senior leadership support, ensuring meetings, briefings, papers, actions and follow-up activity are managed accurately and to required timescales.
• Oversee member and mayoral support arrangements, ensuring consistently high standards of professional, confidential and politically impartial support.
• Manage and coordinate statutory information activity, including Freedom of Information, Environmental Information Regulations and Subject Access requests, ensuring effective allocation, monitoring and compliance with statutory timescales.
• Coordinate key corporate governance and business activity, including forward plans, decision and action logs, risk and issue registers, audit trails and records management.
• Manage workloads and deploy resources flexibly across teams in response to changing priorities, peaks in demand and service pressures.
• Monitor service performance, demand, workloads and quality, producing management information and insight to support assurance, planning and decision-making.
• Support the development and continuous improvement of operating models, processes, systems and ways of working, identifying opportunities to simplify activity and improve the customer experience.
• Champion the effective use of digital technology, data and automation to improve productivity, workflow management and the quality of management information.
• Build effective relationships with senior leaders, elected members, corporate services and operational teams, promoting a collaborative One Council approach., You will combine strong operational grip with excellent judgement and political awareness - able to manage detail while maintaining sight of wider organisational priorities and ensuring consistently high standards of delivery.

Why Join Dudley?

This role offers an opportunity to play a central part in the development of a new and evolving Corporate Business Operations & Support function. You will work at the heart of the organisation, supporting senior leaders and elected members while helping to shape more consistent, modern and resilient ways of working across the Council. The role provides significant scope to influence how corporate support is delivered - improving processes, strengthening standards, making better use of technology and helping to build a flexible service that can respond quickly to organisational priorities. If you are an experienced operational leader who thrives in a fast-paced environment, can bring structure to complexity and is passionate about delivering high-quality corporate support, we would welcome your application.

We are seeking an experienced operational manager with:

• Significant experience of leading or managing business operations, corporate support or a similarly complex professional service.
• A strong track record of managing multiple competing priorities, often in high-profile, sensitive and time-critical environments.
• Experience of managing and developing teams, balancing workloads and flexing resources to maintain service resilience.
• Strong knowledge of corporate governance, business administration, information management and organisational processes.
• Experience of working with senior leaders, elected members or other high-profile stakeholders in a politically sensitive environment.
• A good understanding of statutory information requirements, governance, compliance and assurance.
• Strong analytical and organisational skills, with the ability to use performance information to improve service delivery and support decision-making.
• A demonstrable commitment to continuous improvement, digital enablement and creating efficient, customer-focused ways of working.

About Dudley Council

It's an incredibly exciting time to work in Dudley Council as we embark on numerous multi-million pound regeneration schemes which will be real game-changers for the borough. In addition to the exciting schemes such as the Midland Metro we also have the ongoing and very serious challenges of ensuring vulnerable people across the borough receive the services they deserve. At Dudley Council we have a 'one council' ethos that builds an effective and dynamic organisation which grows the economy and creates jobs, creating a cleaner and greener place and supports stronger and safer communities. We are rightly proud to be the historic capital of the Black Country and, working with our partners, Dudley Council is also committed to looking forward and helping to deliver our borough vision of 'Forge a Future for all' www.dudleyboroughvision2030.org.uk We ensure communities influence council decisions and are committed to delivering services in partnership with communities. We provide flexible and responsive service in partnership and help communities help themselves. In joining a local authority that serves 320,000 residents you will become an integral part of a council that:

• is ready to embrace change, providing an environment in which you will be encouraged to make your mark
• is aware of its key challenges and the need for a new energy to innovate the council, in order to find cost effective ways of delivering services
• has aligned its political and managerial leadership structures and is committed to protecting, securing and transforming the lives of children, families, the vulnerable and older people
• wants borough residents to have their say through our community forums
• dedicates time to meaningful consultation and listen to the views of our residents
• is working with the community to encourage active involvement of our residents