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Company Description
SHINE (Support and Help IN Education) is a leading education charity focused on closing the attainment gap and tackling educational inequality across the North of England. The charity supports teachers to develop and scale innovative classroom practices that improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils from low-income homes, particularly in English, Maths, and Science. Through its flagship grant-making programme, Let Teachers SHINE, the organisation provides funding, mentorship, training, and networking opportunities to help impactful projects grow and reach more young people. SHINE’s approach is grounded in strong evidence and evaluation, with the majority of funded projects meeting their goals and demonstrating measurable impact. Working closely with partners such as ImpactEd Group, The Tutor Trust, Ambition Institute, and The Northern Powerhouse Partnership, SHINE aims to drive systemic change and increase social mobility for children facing persistent disadvantage.
Role purpose
The Head of Operations will provide strategic leadership for SHINE’s operational infrastructure, ensuring the organisation has the systems, governance, financial oversight, compliance arrangements, and ways of working needed to deliver its mission effectively. As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, the postholder will work closely with the CEO, Trustees, and colleagues to strengthen organisational resilience, improve efficiency, manage risk, and enable high-quality delivery across SHINE.
Key responsibilities
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Governance, compliance, data protection, and health and safety
- Take ownership of SHINE’s core organisational policies, ensuring that these are updated at least annually in response to relevant regulatory and compliance information.
- Stay abreast of relevant guidance from the charity commission and other regulatory partners, and ensure this is shared appropriately with other members of the team.
- Oversee data protection compliance, including incident reporting, subject access requests, and the instigation of Data Protection Impact Assessments where required.
- Lead SHINE’s health and safety arrangements, ensuring relevant policies, procedures, risk assessments, and reporting mechanisms are proportionate, up to date, and embedded across the team.
- Review Terms and Conditions offered to grantees prior to CEO signature, ensuring that conditions of funding are accurately reflected in grant paperwork and that the relevant clauses are included in different agreements.
Finance, audit, and risk
- Provide senior oversight to SHINE’s financial management processes, including overseeing monthly cash flow reporting, forecasting, and leading the preparation of papers for Finance and Risk Cluster meetings.
- Liaise with SHINE’s management accountants on investment summaries, ensuring information is accurate and querying significant movements where needed.
- Lead on cash flow forecasting over a 6–18 month period, ensuring that SLT and Trustees have clear, timely information on expected income, expenditure, and cash flow needs.
- Authorise payments up to the current level delegated to the CEO.
- Authorise payroll and lead the administration of pension contributions.
- Oversee preparation for SHINE’s audit, ensuring documentation is well organised, controls are robust, and information is provided promptly to auditors and external advisers.
- Submit quarterly Gift Aid Claims to HMRC and act as organisation lead on any queries relating to tax or NI.
- Oversee SHINE’s standard operating procedures, ensuring key processes are documented, understood, and updated as the organisation develops, and that updates take place across the team at least annually.
- Take ownership for updating SHINE’s Risk Register, at least biannually, and in response to significant developments.
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Procurement and contracts
- Lead regular reviews of all supplier contracts, ensuring best quality and value for money for SHINE.
- Act as the lead account manager for external suppliers including IT support, data protection advisers, HR, accountants, and auditors.
People leadership and line management
- Line manage SHINE’s Assistant Operations Manager, ensuring clear delegation, regular supervision, and appropriate development support, within the framework of SHINE’s approach to line management.
- Lead an annual benchmarking exercise for all roles in the team, supported by independent advice, reporting recommendations to the CEO.
- Build effective working relationships across the organisation, promoting collaborative, responsive, and high-quality operational leadership.
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