Information And Data Protection Manager

Background:
Forestry England is the body responsible for managing the Nation’s Forests. The largest single landholding in the country, comprising over 1500 separate sites. Forestry England manages a wide range of forested and open land, housing, commercial property and various recreation/leisure businesses receiving over 200 million visits a year.

It is an exciting time to join Corporate Affairs Division (CAD). We have a leading role to play in growing and developing Forestry England as it continues to evolve as the land management and delivery arm of the Forestry Commission. The functions CAD leads are vital to ensuring Forestry England’s operations are viewed as trusted, robust, transparent and compliant. The corporate functions within the team includes the CEO office, organisational strategy, natural capital, policy, governance, risk, compliance, performance, insight and knowledge information.

Knowledge and information management provides a key expertise recognising the critical role information plays in Forestry England and across the whole Forestry Commission. The function has a dual focus and leads on cross-Forestry Commission information strategy and policy as well as having operational responsibility in Forestry England for implementing information management, information rights and information security.
Purpose of the Job:
The role of Information and Data Protection Manager provides a unique and exciting opportunity for an individual interested in influencing the evolution of a knowledge and information service providing the opportunity to work with a wide range of individuals and teams based in locations across England.
We are looking for an experienced and self-motivated Information and Data Protection professional. This role will provide expert advice and guidance to the organisation on Data Protection and information rights, to both ensure compliance and be a key enabler for new and expanded activities, particularly in the commercial and marketing spheres. The post holder will use their Data Protection and information rights experience and knowledge to support the KIM Lead in ensuring information rights are understood, communicated and considered in system implementations. The role will work closely and collaboratively with the Forestry Commissioner’s Office, Forestry England’s Executive Team and across the districts to develop and embed a working strategy for managing information in an effective and compliant way.
The post holder will have operational responsibility for information management and Data Protection compliance across Forestry England helping to ensure obligations under information rights and Data Protection laws are met.

The post holder will have key leadership responsibilities across the team.

Key work areas:

General:
• Provide expert technical advice and guidance on all areas of information governance including Data Protection, records management, information rights legislation including Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) and subject access requests.
• Support the Knowledge and Information Management Lead in the development of a KIM Strategy and associated work programme for Forestry England.
• Work collaboratively with the Forestry Commission Commissioner’s office and wider CAD team to provide assurances that Forestry England is meeting its obligations under relevant Data Protection and information legislation and regulations.
• Line manage the Forestry England Information and Records Officer, delegating work as appropriate to build resilience and encourage career development.
Data Protection, information rights and information risk:
• Support the delivery of a comprehensive Data Protection programme to support compliance with EU GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, including the development of policies, procedures and guidance.
• Work with the Governance Risk team, Security Risk Management Forum and KIM Lead to support the approach to information risk management and reduction.
• Support Forestry England Information Asset Owners in meeting their responsibilities
• Coordinate the development and maintenance of Forestry England Information Asset Registers and Personal Data Register of Processing
• Work with the Forestry England KIM Lead and key stakeholders across the Forestry Commission and Forestry England to develop a data breach management plan to ensure an effective and appropriate response to information security incidents.
Information request handling:
• Operational management of Forestry England’s Data Protection and information rights work.
• Develop processes and procedures for handling information requests and monitoring requests that can demonstrate compliance with statutory timeframes.
• Co-ordinate Forestry England’s responses to FOI, EIR and Data Protection requests liaising with the Information Commissioner’s Office and Forestry Commission DPO as required
Communication, training and awareness:
• Work collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders to implement the KIM Strategy, develop policies and embed consistent KIM practices across the business.
• Support the provision of advice to Forestry England’s Chief Exec and Executive Team on their obligations under Data Protection legislation.
• Support the KIM Lead in developing training and awareness to improve the information governance and risk culture including Data Protection, privacy, information rights, information risk awareness and information request handling.
• Support the promotion and awareness of data literacy and implementation of the data strategy in the organisation.
• Develop an enquiry service for all staff, providing response to queries on Data Protection, information rights, records management and wider information management issues.