Associate Director – Estates Maintenance, Capital & Compliance

Job overview

The post holder is primarily responsible for:

• Oversight and responsibility for the successful commissioning and delivery of Estates Maintenance, Capital Management and Compliance services across the QTS Estates portfolio and commercial projects.

• Co-ordinating the development of both QTS’s and our client’s strategies for Estates Maintenance, Capital Management and Compliance services.

• Spearheading the development and management of the quality assurance process across Estates Maintenance, Capital Management and Compliance services, incorporating benchmarking standards where required.

• Playing a lead role in the identification, bidding, acquisition, integration, management and review of commercial projects and new business opportunities for QTS, relevant to the areas of responsibility.

• Leading on the development of policies for the services within their portfolio; informing and defining QTS’s policies, processes, procedures and systems.

• Promoting and delivering a continuous service improvement culture within all teams, services and service partners and informing, creating and delivering programmes for improvement as required.
• Maintaining a good knowledge of all relevant legislation, standards, best practice and emerging policies from Government departments, industry bodies and other relevant organisations.
• Actively role-modelling the behaviours that reflect the values of QTS.

Main duties of the job

The post holder is also responsible for:

• Ensuring appropriate systems, processes, and resources are in place for day-to-day control and to ensure safely operated Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance services across the QTS Estates portfolio or commercial projects.
• Providing expert specialist and professional construction, building, engineering and compliance advice to other estates staff, directors and senior management.
• Ensure that the QTS Executive team are well sighted on performance against areas of statutory and mandatory compliance and that key risks are identified, and appropriate action is taken.
• Deputising for the Deputy Director of Operations as and when required, within the fields of Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance services. When doing so shall exercise their reasonable judgment to continue to deliver all QTS agreed strategies, policies and procedures, assuming the day-to-day accountability and responsibility as the Deputy Director of Operations (Estates Maintenance and Capital) for the duration of their absence.
• Organising their daily workload to complete the tasks in the given priorities, whilst meeting all quality standards, service level agreements and compliance requirements.
• Always ensuring confidentiality, only releasing information obtained during employment to those acting in an official capacity or within the parameters of QTS’s Policies and Procedures.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Operational

• Direct line management of the Head of Estates Maintenance, Head of Capital and Compliance Manager.

• Liaises with key stakeholders, as appropriate, to support works associated with utilities and insurance.

• Strategically reviewing, managing and delivering a resourcing strategy and operational capacity plans to ensure that service level agreements and operational standards are met.

• Overarching responsibility for ensuring an effective system for performance management and reporting is in place for Estates Management, Capital and Compliance services within the QTS Estates portfolio.

• Directly lead or support relevant large scale and strategic projects which require senior involvement, including engagement and collaboration with third parties such as ICB’s, other Trusts and Local Authorities.

• Oversight and management of relevant Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) and third-party agreements and relationships, including quality and financial performance.

• Co-developing individual and team objectives in line with QTS requirements and ensure that these objectives are achieved.

• Ensuring that the necessary systems and processes are in place and operating, so that the safety of patients, staff and visitors is protected as far as is reasonably practical.

• Development and management of relevant information systems, such as the Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) system, to support and ensure consistent and robust performance management and monitoring.

• With the Deputy Director of Operations, overarching responsibility for ensuring that Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance services are carried out in compliance with appropriate legislation, standards, guidance and best practice including all Health Technical Memorandums (HTMs) and Health & Safety Executive (HSE) guidance.

• Leading on the use of performance related highly complex data to analyse trends in service performance, highlight potential issues and take timely remedial action where required.

• Ensuring contribution from across the Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance teams for the re-tendering and contract management of framework agreements (consultant and contractor).

• Overseeing specification, tenders, procurement and contract management for Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance contracts.

• Play a leading role in the successful design, co-ordination and delivery of sustainability agendas across the QTS portfolio and commercial projects as relevant to the role.

• Responsible for collecting contributions and content from the Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance teams, for inclusion in strategic documents and reports, or discussion at high-level forums such as the QTS Senior Management Team (SMT), the QTS Board and Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) Executive Board, along with other relevant committees as required.

• Responsible for chairing and contributing to meetings, groups and committees, including at senior level, both internally and externally. This will include relevant safety meetings, for example, those relating to Water, Ventilation and Electrical.

• Perform Authorised Person/ Responsible Person duties for relevant specialist areas where required.

• Support and contribute towards national return requirements such as ERIC, PAM and PLACE.

• As required by the Deputy Director of Operations, acting as the primary point of contact and senior lead in response to any critical/ emergency need by CNWL/ QTS.

• Promoting a customer first approach and delivering a service that the customer understands, is responsive to their needs, is performance managed and good value for money in the opinion of that customer.

Financial & Budgets

• Contributing to setting and responsible for the revenue budget as allocated by the Deputy Director of Operations and the QTS Finance team. This includes overarching responsibility and oversight for the Estates Maintenance budget.

• Monitoring spend against budget and alerting the Director of Operations of major changes to Capital spend programmes and forecast figures.

• Engaging in cost improvement programmes if and as required, ensuring value for money in Capital spend programmes and the day-to-day operation of the QTS estates portfolio within given remit.

• Support with the identification, investigation and pursuit of other potential funding sources for Estates at QTS.

• Ensuring robust adherence to Procurement requirements and Standing Financial Instructions (SFIs).

Strategy and Service Development

• Supporting with the identification, investigation, pursuit, management and review of other potential income sources for Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance services.

• Developing and maintaining a culture that engages and involves staff in decisions on how services are delivered and encourages and delivers a culture of excellent customer service. Providing patient centred services, recognising the contribution of such service to the overall patient experience.

Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Responsible for developing and applying robust governance procedures to ensure that contracts deliver their contracted benefits which add value to QTS and by extension our clients.

• Responsible, and with assurance from subject matter experts, for ensuring that all Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance activity is compliant to various standards such as, but not limited to, the governance and policy standards set out within QTS, QTS’s clients, and other legislative bodies. An example of this is a need to understand Health Technical Memoranda (HTMs).

• Responsible for identifying, mitigating and managing risks within the remit of Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance and for being a key point for escalation. This includes ensuring that the relevant teams manage and maintain their areas of QTS risk registers.

• Responsible for ensuring robust, well-rehearsed Business Continuity plans are in place for all Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance services.

• Responsible for ensuring that CAS and other safety alerts, relevant to Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance, are acted upon and managed appropriately.

Stakeholder and Relationship Management

• Fostering effective communications and working relationships with key stakeholders internal and external to QTS. Promote, encourage and support cross QTS team collaboration and joint working.

• Using well developed communication, negotiation, and influencing skills to engage a range of staff to oversee and direct the delivery of operational duties, always demonstrating QTS values and behaviours.

• Ensuring effective representation of Estates Maintenance, Capital and Compliance services within QTS and to external groups. Where necessary, attending and providing appropriate assurance, for example, to the Quality & Governance Board, Health & Safety (H&S) Corporate Committee(s), Integrated Care System (ICS) and Sustainability & Transformation Partnerships (STPs).

• Ensuring there is a mechanism in place for customer and client feedback to be gathered and responded to across the services in their portfolio.

• Building and maintaining the reputation of QTS as a highly professional and expert service with effective business partnering arrangements ensuring maximum satisfaction among both internal and external stakeholders.