Role Description
Role purpose
The Director of Authorisation is responsible for providing strategic leadership across some of the SRA’s core operational teams and making sure there are clear management arrangements and controls in place to successfully deliver our corporate objectives.
Reporting to the Executive Director, Operations and Performance, Robert Loughlin, the post holder will work collaboratively across the Directorate, with responsibility for the Authorisation, Contact Centre and Business Support Unit teams.
Working as part of the wider senior leadership team, the postholder will role model our values and behaviours and provide inspirational leadership across the wider organisation.
The department
We regulate more than 200,000 solicitors and 10,000 law firms. Authorisation is the key point at which we make sure individuals and businesses meet the high professional standards we and the public expect when they enter the profession. Our Authorisation team does this by carrying out background checks, character and suitability checks, and by making sure applicants have the right skills and qualifications. Our priority is protecting the public by making sure that individuals or firms entering the profession are safe and competent to do so. We want to make sure this process works as efficiently and smoothly as possible.
Our Contact Centre, accredited by the Institute of Customer Service, receives around 180,000 calls and 46,000 emails a year. Our customers range from members of the public who want to check a solicitor is who they say they are to solicitors needing help with their practising certificate applications.
Our Business Support Unit offers vital services to the organisation. This includes supporting casework, finance and projects and other services, such as personal assistant support for our directors, administrative tasks and help facilitating events.
All our teams work to and deliver a high standard of customer service to our internal and external customers.
Outcomes
- Lead the delivery of the directorate’s strategic objectives, operational work plan and continuous development.
- Ensure that the accuracy and quality of casework within the Directorate is delivered to the highest standards, providing effective direction in relation to complex or high-profile cases.
- Ensure that evidence gathering, investigation and regulatory actions are focused, proportionate and applied fairly and consistently, in line with good investigative practice.
- Make sure our resources – including budget – are used effectively in a in a well-controlled operating environment.
- Deliver continuous improvement of operational processes, talent recruitment and development, and customer service excellence to achieve best-in-class regulatory and operational processes and outcomes.
- Ensure that issues arising from casework are shared within the organisation, contributing to our understanding of the legal landscape.
- Build good relationships with a diverse set of stakeholders (internal and external) to support the delivery of our corporate objectives, provide inspirational leadership and effective engagement in both the Directorate and across the organisation, acting as a role model for our values and behaviours.
Dimensions
- Reporting into the Executive Director, Operations and Performance.
- Responsible for a team of approximately 170 FTE and an annual expenditure budget of around £6.5m.