Public Inquiry and Assurance Officer in Sunderland

Are you passionate about health and social care and looking for a role that offers flexibility and growth? At North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, we value work-life balance and offer a range of flexible working options, including hybrid working. Enjoy a supportive team environment, competitive salary, and opportunities for professional development.

Flexible Working Options: We understand the importance of work-life balance and offer a range of flexible working options, including part-time and job share. We encourage applicants to discuss their preferred working patterns during the interview process.

Hybrid Working: This role offers the opportunity for hybrid working, allowing you to split your time between our ICB offices and home. We aim to provide a supportive and adaptable working environment that meets the needs of our staff, service delivery and the patients within our Region.

• Competitive salary and pension scheme
• Opportunities for professional development and training
• Supportive team environment
• Enhanced work-life balance through flexible and hybrid working arrangements
• Employee Benefits – Salary Sacrifice Schemes such as Lease Cars, Home Electronics, Cycle to Work

The North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board is seeking an organised and experienced Public Inquiry and Assurance Officer. This is a unique opportunity to support high-profile inquiry, investigation and assurance work across an organisation serving 3.1 million people. You will help ensure that sensitive evidence is handled accurately, learning is identified and the organisation meets its legal, regulatory and statutory responsibilities.

Main duties of the job:

• Coordinate a complex portfolio covering public inquiries, statutory investigations, disclosure and associated governance related work.
• Connect teams across corporate governance, complaints, information governance and operational services, helping them work together effectively and avoid duplication.
• Review and organise evidence for inquiries, investigations and disclosure.
• Analyse complaints, concerns and patient feedback related to public inquiries to identify risks, themes and learning.
• Maintain chronologies, evidence trackers, records and clear audit trails.
• Produce reports, briefings and assurance updates for senior leaders.
• Monitor risks, issues, actions and deadlines across multiple workstreams.
• Develop reporting arrangements and dashboards.
• Communicate sensitively with colleagues, inquiry teams, legal representatives, patients and families.
• Support improvements to policies, processes and organisational preparedness.

Working for our organisation:

Our Integrated Care Board (ICB) is the largest in the country. The ICB is responsible for ensuring that high quality and safe health services are accessible to all of our communities. It has a wide range of functions, including promoting integration of health and care services, improving people's health and well-being, reducing health inequalities.

With a £6.6 billion budget and a workforce of 170,000 people across the North East and North Cumbria. As well as strategic functions, ICB staff also work at place level with local health and wellbeing boards in each of our 14 local authority areas. These teams also work alongside our 67 primary care networks which are groups of local GP practices, social care teams and other community-based area providers. The ICB works with our Provider Collaborative too, this includes the 11 NHS Foundation Trusts in the region, to deliver our shared priorities.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities:

You will be educated to postgraduate level or have equivalent experience. You will have coordinated complex projects, casework or assurance activity involving multiple stakeholders. Experience of working in governance, compliance, investigations, complaints, legal services, risk or another public-sector environment is essential.

You will be confident handling sensitive information and analysing large volumes of evidence. You can identify key themes, exercise sound judgement and produce accurate reports for senior review. You will also be able to build trusted relationships, manage competing priorities and remain professional when working with challenging or potentially distressing subject matter. Some travel, plus occasional work outside core hours, may be required.

Knowledge, training and experience:

• Educated to postgraduate level or equivalent experience.
• Experience of coordinating complex projects, programmes, casework or assurance workstreams across multiple stakeholders.
• Experience of handling highly sensitive or confidential information.
• Experience of working within governance, compliance, investigations, complaints, legal, risk or public sector environments.
• Knowledge of records management and information governance requirements.
• Experience of producing high-quality reports, briefings, formal responses and assurance documentation for senior review or governance forums.
• Experience of stakeholder engagement and relationship management.
• Experience of managing complaints, concerns or patient experience/customer care cases within a healthcare, public sector or regulated environment.
• Experience of identifying themes, trends and learning from complaints, incidents or investigations.
• Understanding of the NHS Complaints Regulations and principles of complaint handling.
• Experience supporting public inquiries, inquests, investigations or statutory reviews.
• Knowledge of disclosure processes and evidence management.
• Understanding of NHS governance structures and statutory duties.
• Experience of managing or supporting disclosure exercises relating to complaints, incidents or inquiries.

Physical Skills:

• Advanced keyboard and IT skills.
• Competence in Microsoft Office applications.

The use of Artificial Intelligence: Whilst the ICB are a highly innovative organisation, the use of Third Party Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a risk to the integrity of our Recruitment & Selection processes. If you use AI, and it poses a risk to the integrity of your individual recruitment process, we may withdraw your application at any stage of the process.

UKVI Sponsorship: Please note that North East and North Cumbria ICB do not hold a UKVI sponsorship license. Therefore, we are unable to proceed with applications that require sponsorship.

Reasonable Adjustments: If you require any reasonable adjustments to attend interview please make the recruitment team aware as soon as possible by calling our HR Recruitment Team on 0191 203 1415 option 2.

Fit & Proper Person Regulations: Applicants who meet the Fit and Proper Person Requirements (FPPR) will require additional pre-employment checks in line with CQC and NHS England statutory guidance.