Regulation and Governance Service Manager

Help Shape the Future of Housing in Sheffield

Sheffield City Council is one of the UK's largest social landlords, responsible for nearly 40,000 council homes and delivering services that make a real difference to tenants and residents across the city.

We are transforming our Housing Service to create a modern, high-performing and customer-focused landlord that is safe, compliant, evidence-led and accountable to residents. As part of this transformation, we have established a specialist Strategy & Regulation function to strengthen strategic leadership, planning, governance, regulatory assurance and continuous improvement across Housing.

We are now seeking an ambitious and experienced Regulation and Governance Service Manager to lead our newly established Housing Regulation and Governance Service.

About the Role

This is an exciting opportunity to lead a high-profile service at the heart of Sheffield's housing transformation journey.

Reporting to the Assistant Director of Strategy & Regulation, you will provide strategic leadership for planning, governance, regulation and service improvement across Housing. You will translate corporate priorities into coordinated service and business plans, governance arrangements and improvement activity, ensuring priorities are aligned, deliverable and focused on better outcomes for tenants and residents.

You will lead the development and embedding of robust governance, assurance, regulatory compliance and risk management frameworks. This includes strengthening inspection readiness, ensuring the service can evidence delivery against regulatory expectations and creating clear routes for oversight, challenge, escalation and improvement.

The role also brings together strategic business planning, the Housing Revenue Account business planning interface, workforce planning, business continuity, digital enablement and service transformation. Working across Housing and with corporate colleagues, you will ensure that financial, workforce, operational and digital planning are integrated and support effective delivery.

You will lead a multidisciplinary management team covering planning, improvement and risk, consumer regulation and standards, and digital and information systems. You will create the conditions for evidence-based decision-making, organisational learning and sustained improvement across one of the country's largest local authority housing services.

What You'll Be Doing

Leading the Housing Regulation and Governance Service and setting the strategic direction for planning, governance, regulation, risk and service improvement across Housing.

Translating corporate and Housing priorities into coordinated business plans, delivery programmes and measurable improvement activity.

Developing and embedding effective governance, assurance, compliance and risk management frameworks.

Leading Housing's approach to regulatory readiness, evidence, self-assessment, assurance reviews and improvement planning.

Ensuring service, financial, workforce and operational planning are integrated, including the strategic Housing Revenue Account business planning interface.

Providing clear, credible advice, briefings and decision-making information to senior leaders, elected members and governance forums.

Leading transformation and service redesign activity across organisational boundaries and securing delivery through others.

Ensuring data, performance, financial, workforce and customer insight inform priorities, challenge and improvement.

Overseeing business continuity, organisational resilience, workforce capability and digital enablement within the service.

Building strong relationships across Housing, the Council, regulators and external partners to influence outcomes and drive improvement.

Leading and developing a high-performing multidisciplinary leadership team and deputising for the Assistant Director when required.

Support and present information to housing committees, internal leadership teams, and the regulator for social housing.

Supporting and enabling our drive for significant digital improvements for our tenants, residents, and colleagues

Who We're Looking For

We are looking for an inspirational leader who can demonstrate:

Management experience in a large, complex organisation, leading strategic planning, business planning, governance, assurance, improvement or related functions.

A strong track record of translating organisational strategy into service priorities, work programmes, delivery plans and measurable outcomes.

Experience of strategic financial planning, forecasting, business cases or business planning, strong knowledge of the Housing Revenue Account is preferred but not essential.

Experience of leading organisational change, transformation or redesign involving multiple services and stakeholders.

Knowledge of the governance, financial and strategic context for council housing, including how co-regulation works with elected members.

Experience of developing governance, assurance, risk or regulatory compliance arrangements that support effective decision-making and inspection readiness.

Experience of working with senior leaders, corporate services and elected members, including producing clear reports, briefings and recommendations.

Knowledge of digital improvement, information management and how data, insight and customer experience can support service improvement.

Strong leadership and people-management skills, with experience of developing managers, and leading high-performing teams.

Excellent communication, influencing and relationship-building skills, with the confidence to provide constructive challenge and secure collaboration across the Council.

The ability to analyse complex issues and use performance, risk, financial, workforce and customer insight to develop practical, evidence-based solutions.

A relevant degree or professional qualification, or equivalent significant management experience in strategy, business planning, governance, improvement, organisational development, housing, public policy or service management.

Why Join Us?

This is a unique opportunity to help shape the future of Housing in Sheffield. You will join a newly established leadership team responsible for strengthening Housing's strategic planning, governance, regulation, assurance and continuous improvement.

Your work will help create clearer accountability, stronger organisational resilience, improved regulatory readiness and better coordinated services. It will directly contribute to improved outcomes for tenants and residents and the ongoing transformation of one of the country's largest local authority housing services.

Interested?

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact:

Nick Beasley, Assistant Director - Strategy & Regulation

nicholas.beasley@sheffield.gov.uk

We are investing in our workforce and are promoting opportunities to our under-represented groups. We value equality, diversity and inclusion and are focused on increasing the diversity of our workforce, particularly the number of Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, Disabled and LGBTQ+ people, so that our teams reflect the communities in the city we serve. We are also supporting staff with unpaid caring responsibilities to work flexibly.

It is a great time to join us and we welcome your application.

Under the Guaranteed Interview scheme, applicants who are disabled, care leavers, or armed forces veterans will be guaranteed an interview if they meet the essential criteria and indicate their eligibility on the application form. Sometimes, if lots of people apply, we might not be able to interview everyone who qualifies for the Guarantee. In these cases, we’ll interview the candidates who best meet the essential criteria for the job.

Full-time employees work 37 hours for 52 weeks of the year and we offer a generous holiday entitlement. We are open to discussions about a wide range of flexible working opportunities which benefit you and the Council, including reduced hour contracts, working part time or as a job share.

If you are appointed to this role, your starting salary will be at the bottom of the grade. If you provide payslip evidence that your basic pay is greater than the bottom of the grade, we will consider starting you at the point of minimum advantage within the grade.

Equality of pay is extremely important to us. All roles at Sheffield City Council are going through an evaluation process which may result in changes to some pay arrangements from 2026. Find out more on our Sheff news page.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all individuals, ensuring a safe and supportive environment for everyone and where appropriate to the role the successful applicant will be required to undertake relevant safeguarding checks.