Assistant Director, Funding Policy (Grade M1)

Key Responsibilities

• Reporting to the Deputy Director, Tertiary Education Funding, and working closely with analytical colleagues, develop policies for funding allocation model development including implementation strategies.
• Participate in cross SFC work on funding policy development, ensuring that any changes are clearly communicated with impacts on other areas of SFC’s work understood.
• Work with the wider sector on the approach to allocating funding, participating in working groups and producing policy papers.
• Working with the fellow Assistant Director, Funding Policy, ensure read across between the approach to college and university funding, exploring and developing synergies where appropriate.
• Work with the analytical colleagues on implications of changes to areas such as populations, demographics, demand and skills needs for future funding allocation models. 
• Draft papers for SFC Executive Team Committees and Board on developing SFC’s approach to allocating funding. 
• Develop implementation strategies for changes to funding allocation models ensuring that changes are appropriately phased and communicated in advance. 
• Liaise with the Scottish Government on potential change in funding allocation models, ensuring that they are aligned with Government policies. 
• Monitor the impact of changes in funding allocations models, to inform further development. 

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• A proven track record in the development and implementation of policy, with the ability to think strategically, flexibly and creatively while demonstrating good judgement in response to complex issues.
• Experience of working in a funding/finance environment.
• Excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal and influencing skills with an ability to build and maintain strong relationships at all levels.
• Solutions-focused with excellent problem-solving, analytical and critical thinking skills.
• Ability to foster a culture of trust and co-operation, and team working with strong customer and results focus while being politically aware with highly effective networking skills.
• Highly motivated/enthusiastic and driven with high level of personal resilience to remain effective in changing business circumstances.
• Decisive in making well thought-through decisions and ability to work independently and take the initiative.
• Analytical thinker able to interpret information and statistical performance analysis for both internal and external purposes.
• Confident and competent in a range of IT applications including Microsoft Office applications.

• An understanding of the Scottish further and higher education landscape and the role of SFC within this. 

Terms and Benefits

About
We are the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, more commonly known as the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).We are Scotland’s tertiary education and research authority and our purpose is to sustain a world-leading system of tertiary education, research and innovation that enables students to flourish, changes lives for the better, and supports social, economic and environmental wellbeing and prosperity.We do this by investing around £2 billion of public money to deliver:Tertiary learning and teaching.Skills and apprenticeships.Student support and participation.Research, innovation and knowledge exchange.Data collection and dissemination.National quality assurance and enhancement processes.Capital and digital infrastructure for the sector.Strategic change, responsive provision and research priorities.As a non-departmental public body established by the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005, we are directly accountable to Scottish Government Ministers and the Scottish Parliament. We work across many government portfolios and are sponsored by the Lifelong Learning Directorate.We hold colleges, universities and other funded bodies to account for their delivery of required outcomes. We are also the statistical authority for colleges, and work closely with the UK-wide Higher Education Statistical Authority (HESA), to provide data and statistics for government, decision-makers, and the wider public.We work in partnership with a wide range of partners and bodies, including those we fund, across all aspects of our remit.General information for applicants for SFC rolesYou must already be eligible to work in the UK to apply for these roles. SFC does not offer employment sponsorship for new employees.We are pleased to support applications from everyone regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, socio-economic background, gender, sexual orientation, sex, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief, as well as those who have skills in Scottish Gaelic or British Sign Language, who have the right skills for the job.  We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and actively encourage interviews through the scheme.  Further information about SFC is available on our website Scottish Funding Council home page (sfc.ac.uk).   Additional information about our recruitment process can be found at Recruitment Information and Tips | Scottish Funding Council Careers (sfc.ac.uk).