Head Of Data

JOB DESCRIPTION                                  

Job Title: Head of Data

Team: Strategy and Partnerships Team

Salary range/pay band: £55,000 dependant on experience

Reports to: Director of Strategy and Partnerships

Direct reports: None

Hours: 37.5 per week

Location: Christopher’s (Guildford)/Shooting Star House (Hampton) with travel as required

Introduction to Shooting Star Children’s Hospices

Shooting Star Children’s Hospices

Shooting Star Children’s Hospices are a leading children’s hospice charity caring for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions, and their families. We support families across Surrey and South West London from diagnosis to end of life and throughout bereavement with a range of nursing, practical, emotional and medical care.

At the heart of the hospice are our dedicated clinical staffs.  Their exceptional commitment and professionalism is commented on by so many of the supported children and their families. 

It costs £10.5 million a year to maintain our current level of care and only 30% of that income comes from government funding via the NHS or local authorities, so we rely on our supporters’ generosity to keep the service running. We employ 175 staff, including 98 nursing and medical staff, providing hospice and community-based services to around 700 families.

Predominantly we work with families living in the North West and South West of London and Surrey, although will accept children outside these geographical areas if they do not have access to specialist palliative care support locally.  We have a reputation for delivering high quality care.  We have a CQC rating of ‘Outstanding’

Part 1: Job Profile

a) Main purpose of  job

Shooting Star Children’s Hospices exists to provide the very best care and support for children with life limiting illness and their families.

As our Data Lead, you’ll be accountable for reviewing and updating our existing data strategy and implementing it across the organisation, to support our For Every Family Strategy.

You’ll ensure that our data is of high quality, well understood, and can be used easily for a range of reporting requirements, including working with external NHS and Social Care stakeholders. By working with key data champions throughout the organisation, you will enable us to take strategic and tactical decisions in our business model using data-driven evidence.

You’ll be a vital and valuable member of the organisation, working effectively with all departments across the Charity and will bring your knowledge and expertise (especially in data structures and management of Data definitions, data modelling, cleansing and enrichment; data quality assurance, validation and linkage; and data visualisation) to the table as you advise, coach, and implement fundamental and sustainable change.

In short, you will lead understanding of Data use throughout the Charity, use and educate best practice, and giving data input in projects and changes to ensure we grow sustainably with the right data management in place. Using your logical and creative thinking, data leadership, project management, communication, and analysis skills daily will help us achieve the step-change we want to see in our future.

b) Work relationship

Internal stakeholders

• Director of Strategy and Partnerships
• CEO and all members of the OLT
• Heads of service, in care and all members of the SCLT
• HR Business Partners & HR Administrators
• Comms & Marketing team
• Fundraising Team
• Retail Team

External stakeholders

• Statutory organisations within the SSCH area
• Other hospices across the UK

c) Decision making authority

The post holder will act within the agreed budgetary sign off levels assigned to the role and within the scope of delegation of the organisation

d) Scope of job – what does success look like?

• Having reviewed and then implemented our updated data strategy, all areas of Data within the Charity will be joined up, well understood and matched to processes that our staff adhere to in order to ensure high data quality. The data requirements always being a key part of the business processes, projects and changes, leading to us achieving tangible improvements in performance, efficiency and insight by default.
• Leading analysts, you will support and guide them as they build well understood reports, giving 360 degree views of Data across the whole organisation, using reusable and multi-threaded reports using PowerBI.
• We will have a logical and defined organisational data model, including all the data relationships, that is being successfully leveraged to meet the different priorities of the charity.
• Data quality will be high, and any problems easily alerted and rectified, with full understanding of any inconsistencies so that future issues are always kept to a minimum. This will also allow us to meet any data requests received and to comply with internal DPO requests to meet with agreed SLAs
• Confidence levels within the charity around using, analysing, and interpreting data have risen significantly.

Part 2: Main duties and key responsibilities

• Responsible for ensuring the integrity, quality and accessibility of the Charity's data across our platforms.
• Reviewing the data strategy on a regular basis and managing the execution of updates to this.
• Managing and leading a small team of Data analysts, ensuring set goals are met etc.and ensure that there is adequate understanding and use of PowerBI.
• Acting as the business partner for data with leaders and teams across the whole Charity, understanding and contributing to business priorities, and translating these into data-driven solutions.
• Accountable for the data structure and model of the charity, particularly within the Dynamics CRM.
• Accountable for data quality and compliance activities, maintaining the integrity of the charity’s data systems and processes.
• Accountable for delivery of reporting which has been requested as part of Project or Change processes.
• Ensuring reporting of Data uses agreed standard business rules and parameters
• Act as the gatekeeper whilst empowering data champions to ensure integrity of Data in provides valuable data out.
• Accountable for developing the necessary competency-based training framework for data across the charity

d) Other duties

• The post holder will be working in a dynamic, developing and changing environment thus will be expected to undertake other appropriate duties as required for the effective operation of Shooting Star Children’s Hospices.
• The post holder must be able and willing to get to and work in both hospices
• The post holder will need to travel occasionally throughout the area and less frequently nationally.
• The post holder should be prepared to attend Shooting Star Children’s Hospices meetings in different parts of the country.  Some meetings may be during evenings or weekends
• The post holder will be required to apply for a Disclosure and Barring Service check

e)  Mandatory Criteria

1. Professional Codes of Conduct

The post holder will be required to respect professional codes of conduct and practice relevant to their role, as appropriate

2. Health and Safety

The post holder will be responsible for health and safety in the area under their control and ensure that they are familiar with Shooting Star Children’s Hospices policy on health and safety at work.

3. Mandatory Training

The post holder will attend all mandatory training relevant to their role

4. Our values and behaviours

Shooting Star Children’s Hospices is a leading children’s hospice charity for babies, children and young people with life –limiting conditions, and their families. We require that all of our staff share our common values and display behaviours that will enable us to achieve our goals. 

Professionalism – we will safeguard our families, each other and our organisation by working to ethical and professional standards at all times.

Respect – We will treat each other with the utmost respect.

Integrity – We will be open, honest and transparent in all that we do.

Diversity – We will respect individuality and ensure inclusion and fairness to all.

Excellence – We will strive for excellence in all that we do.

Shooting Star Children’s Hospices is committed to ensuring the welfare and safety of children and young people. All staff members are expected to adhere to our safeguarding policies and procedures. This includes undergoing appropriate training, following reporting protocols for any concerns related to child welfare, and promoting a safe and supportive environment for children and young people. Before commencing employment, successful candidates will be required to provide satisfactory references and undergo an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

Part 3: Person specification: Qualifications, experience and skill levels

a) Qualifications

• Educated to degree level (E)
• Educated to Masters level (D)
• Post graduate management qualification (D)

b) Experience knowledge and skills

As Data Lead, you’ll be familiar with the relevant requirements for such a role (we refer to the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework that you can find online).

We expect you to be able to demonstrate competence in:

• Working as an integrated data expert within a mixed operational delivery environment.
• Able to demonstrate team leadership to manage staff and effectively deliver reporting requirements in a timely manner.
• Structuring, manipulating, and leveraging data capability within Microsoft data ecosystem (Power BI, Dynamics, Synapse, Sharepoint and Business Central)
• Experience of working within projects and change processes to help the delivery of the organisational strategy.
• Strong communication (verbal and written), collaboration, and coaching skills., business acumen and can demonstrate emotional intelligence.

c) General attributes

• Demonstrable passion for children’s hospice and palliative care (E)
• Flexible, adaptable and willing to work anti-social hours (D)
• Ability to present information effectively in a variety of forums and to various audiences (E)

What we offer

Pension scheme

• NHS Pension Scheme (eligible employees)
• Stakeholder pension scheme
• Employee contribution 3.5%
• Shooting Star Children’s Hospices contribution 4.5%
• Additional contributions – we will pay 1% above the contribution up to a limit of 7%

Annual leave

• 35 days including Bank Holidays rising with length of service
• 2 weeks paid sabbatical leave after 5, 10 and 15 years’ service

Contractual benefits

• Generous sick pay scheme
• Enhanced maternity, adoption, and paternity leave pay
• Flexible working arrangements
• Death in service benefits
• Reimbursed professional membership fees
• Eye care
• Employee referral scheme
• Blue Light discount card

Health and wellbeing

• Employee Assistance Programme
• Occupational Health
• Cycle to work scheme
• Mental Health First Aiders
• Nutritionally balanced meals at Christopher’s (free employees)

Equality, diversity and inclusion

Shooting Star Children’s Hospice is committed to inclusion and diversity in everything we do. We know that getting things right is critical for us to live our organisation’s values: Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diversity and Excellence.

We are always trying to improve our way of working to be more inclusive and equal. Our vision is for Shooting Star Children’s Hospice to be a place where people of all backgrounds, groups and communities feel welcomed to work and volunteer.