Appointment of the Vice-Dean and Head of School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

Reports to: The Vice-President and Dean
Organisational Unit: School of Health Sciences

Overall purpose

The Vice-Dean & Head of School is a strategically critical role within the University.  The School provides the key interface with the Faculty and University. As both Head of School and a full member of the Faculty Leadership Team, the post holder will provide the academic leadership and management to ensure that the School makes a full contribution towards the objectives of the Faculty and the University.

The Vice-Dean & Head of School will engage effectively with Academic and research staff within the School, and also the wider Faculty and will work closely with the Head of School Operations, who is responsible for the School’s Professional Services staff, in order to develop and deliver the School strategy and ensure that the academic and professional services priorities are aligned.

Key Duties/responsibilities

The key duties and responsibilities of the Vice-Dean & Head of School include the following:

Leadership

• Demonstrating full commitment to the realisation of the vision and objectives of the University and Faculty in the context of the School, through identifying and leading the contribution of the School.
• Promoting interdisciplinary working, new areas of research and postgraduate teaching and innovative degree programmes in keeping with the spirit of the Faculty and University.
• Working closely with the relevant Vice-Deans and Associate Deans to ensure academic objectives, including innovation and delivery are met and working with School and Faculty leaders to enable the best, financially sustainable outcomes
• Maintaining an awareness of developments in higher education policy and practice, especially with relevance to the work of the School.
• Actively promoting the interests of the School both within the University and externally.
• Seeking to enhance the reputation of the School and to attract funding nationally and internationally.
• Ensuring that there is a cohesive School Leadership Team and providing strong and supportive leadership to Heads of Division and other senior managers within the School enabling them to deliver on the full range of expectations of their roles.
• Engaging and communicating with impact across the School maintaining a high degree of visibility

Strategic and Academic Planning

• Defining, and regularly reviewing, the teaching and research objectives and priorities for the School, in collaboration with senior leaders within and outside the School, and in the context of the Faculty strategy, ensuring consultation with academic staff.
• Ensuring that research and teaching and learning expectations are clearly communicated in the School and discussed at both an individual and Division/School basis
• Contributing to the development and delivery of the Faculty strategic plan, ensuring that the strategies of the School are consistent with those of the Faculty and University.
• Taking responsibility for quality assurance within the School and, in particular, for ensuring that University procedures are appropriately followed.
• Ensuring that there is appropriate allocation of staff to strategic and academic activities and that contribution is assessed
• Ensuring that appropriate links are maintained with subject and professional bodies and that professional courses meet or exceed the expectations of professional bodies
• Ensuring that appropriate links are maintained with relevant NHS organisations and partnership organisations such as the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre and Health Innovation Manchester and other external collaborators

Management of the School

• Managing the school in an efficient, structured, open and transparent way.
• Setting the agenda for the School in terms of the objectives of teaching, research, knowledge transfer and social responsibility
• Promoting effective working partnerships between academic, research and Professional Support Services staff.
• Playing a pivotal role in engagement and communications in and across the School, the Faculty and University, and fostering links with both faculty and central University offices.
• Consulting with staff as appropriate on matters of legitimate concern and encouraging them to be involved in the life of the School.
• Ensuring compliance within the School with all University policies and procedures, and the provisions of the Charter, Statutes, Ordinances and Regulations.
• Ensuring that the School meets agreed targets including student recruitment targets, financial targets and any other agreed performance indicators.
• Ensuring that the School meets its obligations in terms of formal reporting to the Faculty/University in a timely manner.
• Fostering public engagement in the work of the School.
• Ensuring that the School has appropriate governance in place, particularly in ensuring that the School Board operates effectively

People

• Working with the School and Divisional Leadership Teams to embed a positive culture that embraces University values and encourages collegiality both within the School and with other parts of the Faculty and University.
• Playing an active role in the recruitment, appointment development and retention of high calibre staff to the School and creating a supportive environment within the School which encourages the development of staff at all levels.
• Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in the School in accordance with the policies of the University and ensuring their implementation within the School.
• Promoting the interests and well being of all staff in the School.
• Taking overall responsibility for the deployment of staff within the School and the allocation of duties.
• Ensuring that probationary staff receive appropriate support and guidance throughout the probationary period, including formal induction, and overseeing the production of recommendations for confirmation of appointment.
• Ensuring a robust approach to performance management with all staff within the School undertaking a performance development review at least annually, and more often as required, to support the delivery of clear objectives set by Heads of Division in consultation with the relevant Research or Teaching & Learning leads, as appropriate and using the Capability Procedure where performance consistently falls short of expectations
• Making recommendations with regard to promotions and rewards, ensuring associated procedures are robustly managed at Division and School level
• Ensuring that HR procedures including those relating to discipline, grievance, management of sickness absence are followed, where necessary, for staff.
• Managing the School’s arrangements for approving academic leave and requests from academic staff for permission to undertake outside work.

Students

• Ensuring effective arrangements are in place for the recruitment, admission, academic support, welfare and progression of students.
• Ensuring that effective arrangements are in place governing the teaching and study of the subjects assigned to the School
• Delivering (as far as it is within the School’s control) the best possible student experience and quality of programmes, including ensuring that clear arrangements are in place for students to receive the tuition, feedback and support to which they are entitled and for monitoring of the student experience
• Ensuring that procedures relating to discipline and grievance are followed, where necessary, for students.
• Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in the School in accordance with the policies of the University.

Financial/Estate

• Taking responsibility for the School’s financial resources (including control of the School budget), ensuring they are deployed in an efficient and cost effective way to achieve the objectives of the School, the Faculty and the University.
• Ensuring that the School operates within the Financial Regulations of the University and in a financially sustainable way.
• Ensuring that procurement issues are fully and properly managed.
• Ensuring the efficient use of space and the development of the School’s facilities.

Health and Safety

• Ensuring that a safe working environment is provided for students and staff within the School.
• Reviewing, from time to time, the health and safety procedures in operation in the School and ensuring that they are adhered to.
• Understand the influence of area of activity on carbon emissions and wider environmental impacts. Responsible, in collaboration with colleagues, for developing plans to reduce carbon emissions and to identify and address barriers to further this reduction. Lead on embedding more sustainable practice and empowering action within sphere of influence and control.

Personal academic contribution

It is expected that the Vice-Dean & Head of School will have an active research interest in an area relevant to School activities, and will make a teaching and research contribution commensurate with the commitment to leadership duties.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Candidates must be able to provide specific evidence of how they meet the requirements of this person specification in order to be considered for the role.

Knowledge & experience

• A personal academic standing and track record of achievement, that commands the respect of colleagues within the School, Faculty, University and externally
• A proven track record of working at a senior level, managing diverse resources to drive strategy, budget, and performance in a university environment.
• Previous experience as a highly effective Head of Division/Department or a small School (or an equivalent unit)
• Experience of having promoted excellence in Teaching & Learning and Research within a Division/Department, School (or an equivalent unit) and also externally
• Experience of managing and leading people through transformational change and developing a culture of continuous improvement, partnership and collaboration, and resilience
• Experience of having difficult conversations at an individual level and acting firmly but fairly in tackling difficult management issues
• Knowledge and experience of applying policies, procedures and effective approaches to equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Knowledge of policies and procedures within the areas of HR, Finance, Health and Safety, Information Governance and Data Protection that are relevant in Higher Education or a similar, large and complex environment.
• Experience of having built effective partnerships with a range of staff.

Skills

• Able to demonstrate skills in:
• Leadership – authentic leadership with the ability to lead by example, set direction and motivate staff, negotiate and influence laterally and upwardly
• Management – ability to set financial and non-financial targets, monitor performance, and address performance issues to drive achievement of key measures; ability to prioritise effectively against a wide-range of competing activities
• People Management – ability to manage people through setting objectives, reviewing and managing performance, with a track record of impactful team development
• Engagement and Communications – ability to communicate and engage with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders effectively both verbally and through written materials, able to customise messages for different audiences and using influencing skills and persuasion where appropriate
• Strategic Insight – development, planning and implementing strategy and gaining the agreement of colleagues to strategic decisions.
• Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving – analysis of management and benchmarking information to determine root causes or trends, generation and implementation of pragmatic and simple solutions
• Teamwork – able to act as a team member at all levels of the University, building key relationships with people to drive achievement and successful outcomes
• Change and Project Management – able to lead, engage and deliver change proactively, delivering planned outcomes through realization of benefits; able to lead and manage projects to schedule, budget and agreed quality

Personal qualities

• Has a strong commitment to the goals and vision of the School, Faculty and University.
• Creates a sense of unity and common purpose.
• Honest and open, demonstrates a high level of personal integrity.
• Actively works to build teams and relationships across both PS and academic staff, maintaining a high degree of visibility
• Consults with colleagues at all levels on a regular basis, and listens
• Looks beyond the boundaries of the School and Faculty in promoting interdisciplinary working.
• Knows when to take advice.
• Well organised and committed to getting the job done.
• Demonstrates commitment to their own personal development