Data Compliance Officer

The Infected Blood Compensation Authority is a recently established organisation which has been set up to pay compensation to those who have been infected and affected by the infected blood scandal. The IBCA Data Governance team sits within the Strategy and Governance Directorate, and is staffed by leads for Data Protection, Knowledge and Information Management (KIM), and Disclosure Operations.

The Data Protection strand will enable IBCA to process personal data while assuring compliance with data protection legislation, and is led by IBCA’s Data Protection Officer. The KIM strand focuses on the information lifecycle within the organisation to provide effective oversight of the creation, organisation, storage, disposal and exploitation of available data, and is led by the Head of Knowledge and Information Management. The Disclosure Operations strand leads on providing responses to FOI requests, Subject Access Requests, and related correspondence relating to data subject rights and requests for information. This is led by the Information Rights and Disclosure Lead.

As a Data Compliance Officer, you will take end-to-end ownership of rights of access requests under both Data Protection and Freedom of Information legislation. You will effectively manage cases from initial receipt through to final disclosure, ensuring strict compliance with legislative timelines, regulatory guidance and internal policies. Utilising your depth of knowledge, you will independently evaluate and service standard requests without the need for management escalation, accurately applying complex legislative exemptions and provisioning clear legally sound justifications where necessary.

Beyond casework, you will serve as a vital advisory resource, providing expert compliance guidance to colleagues at all levels of the organisation. You will collaborate closely with directors and Senior Managers across various directorates to smoothly progress applications and align practices. Additionally, you will be responsible for proactively identifying and evaluating potential data risks to the authority, partners and individuals, ensuring appropriate mitigations and exemptions are applied to keep the organisation’s information sharing practices secure and legally robust.

Alongside these, we are looking for you to:

• Maintain an exceptional level of accuracy and attention to detail.
• Dynamically manage your own workload and conflicting priorities.
• Handle highly sensitive information with the utmost confidentiality, tact and discretion.
• Proactively problem solve and develop practical strategies to overcome operational issues.
• Balance independent working with active teamwork.

Person specification:

• Knowledge and experience of dealing with Data Protection or Freedom of Information requests, and related correspondence relating to requests for information.
• Outstanding ability to identify risk relating to organisational and individual impact specific to both Data Protection and Freedom of Information legislative practices.
• Ability to identify sources of information both internally and externally.
• Proficient computer skills, including Word and Excel.
• Working without direct supervision.
• Must have a flexible approach to tasking and have the ability to recognise changing priorities.
• Experience of working successfully with Partner Agencies.
• Ability to assimilate bespoke databases.