# Head of Regulatory and Corporate Finance Strategy **Company**: Ofwat (Water Services Regulation Authority) **Location**: Birmingham, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, West Midlands, Greater London **Work arrangement**: hybrid **Experience**: senior **Job type**: Flexible **Salary**: GBP 59,660 - 75,000 per year **Category**: Finance **Industry**: Finance **Apply**: https://www.jobsgopublic.com/job/head-regulatory-and-corporate-finance-strategy-104629?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply **Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_82ecc4d3-690 ## Description We are Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, a non-ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales. We have an opportunity for a **Head of Regulatory and Corporate Finance Strategy** to join our Financial Resilience Team within the Delivery Directorate. The water sector is entering a new chapter. The government has set out a bold new direction, bringing together expertise from across the sector to deliver better outcomes for customers and the environment. We are collaborating with fellow regulators to respond to recommendations in The Independent Water Commission Report, the Welsh Government’s response to the Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Water Governance in Wales, and the Government’s White Paper, A new vision for water. Ofwat is working with the government and other regulators to help create a new body for England, bringing together our strengths with those of the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the Environment Agency and Natural England. We are also continuing to work with the Welsh Government to support decisions on the future arrangements for Wales. While these changes take shape, our mission remains the same: to hold water companies to account, drive performance, and ensure the sector delivers real value for customers, communities, and the environment. If you’re passionate about making a difference, this is a unique moment to join us and help shape the future of water, and together we can continue to make a positive impact. **Job description** Resilience is crucial in the water sector – and we define this as including corporate, financial, and operational resilience. The **Financial Resilience work-stream**, within the **Delivery directorate** looks at the corporate and financial resilience of companies in the sector. Companies are responsible for ensuring that they are resilient, and we expect companies to be transparent in their reporting in relation to the risks that they face and their assessment of financial resilience. We expect the information published by the companies we regulate to provide us with confidence as to the quality of their assessment of their long-term viability. We monitor the performance and resilience of the companies we regulate, exploring all sources of information available to us, including Annual Performance Reports and statutory accounts, looking in detail at corporate structures and financing and governance arrangements. We challenge companies where necessary to take steps to improve their financial resilience and we hold companies to account where they are not delivering in line with expectations. We are also carrying out work to review our procedures and processes and to determine whether there is more we can and should do to hold companies to account for maintaining their financial resilience. Our aim is to ensure the interests of customers are protected in the event of risks to financial resilience. We are also supporting Defra as they develop plans for the new water regulator following the Independent Water Commission's Report in 2025. As part of this work, we will be engaging with companies, investors, government and other stakeholders. As a **Principal** within the financial resilience team, you will use your accountancy experience and knowledge of regulatory and corporate finance to monitor the financial performance of the companies Ofwat regulates, to ensure that they are complying with the requirements of their licences, and to challenge companies to ensure that they provide financial data in a clear and transparent way. We also expect you to have a key role in developing our future approach to regulation. In leading an area of work in the financial resilience work stream, you’ll ensure that we’re delivering on our strategic objectives to time and to budget, and in line with our ways of working. You will make an important contribution to understanding and managing strategic risks and opportunities. Internally, our principals will have a seat at the leadership table, forming part of our wider leadership team, and will take responsibility for cracking our toughest problems to deliver our objectives. You will have a broad portfolio of issues and will take ownership of a range of specific policies and procedures, taking responsibility and accountability for their success. You will be expected to have good judgement and to exercise it across complex issues responsibly in line with our strategy and ways of working. Effective stakeholder engagement, including with Investors and across Government, will be important for your success, as you nurture existing relationships whilst developing new ones. Our organisational culture is also very important to us, and we expect all our people to uphold our SAILOR values. We have a well-supported, agile and flexible working environment – and have an autonomous and trust-based culture to help you succeed within Ofwat. **Key deliverables:** - Successful candidate will be expected to work on different projects within the Financial Resilience work stream. - A key stand of the work is the development of our policy and processes in relation to how companies need to demonstrate resilience and the approach that Ofwat or a successor regulator should take to regulation in this area, this includes engaging with Defra and other stakeholders in developing our approach to future regulation. - You may also contribute monitoring the financial performance and position of both the wholesale water and wastewater companies and the non-household retail companies and, considering whether there is a risk to their resilience and whether action needs to be taken to protect customers. - Within this work stream you may also be involved in looking at issues relating to the accuracy and transparency of financial reporting by companies, company compliance with relevant licence requirements and may be involved in work to address concerns over the resilience of individual companies. - You may also be involved in supporting engagement with investors and other stakeholders, in relation to evolving regulation and work being undertaken by the Delivery Directorate. - The financial resilience team are also expected to support other workstreams and priority areas across Ofwat. **Person specification** To be successful in this role you will need the below essential attributes, experience, skills and knowledge: **Experience, skills and knowledge** - Good understanding of regulatory and corporate finance and associated reporting requirements for the water sector. - Relevant experience in investor relations and/or in engagement with government in respect of complex financial issues. - Experience of leading work streams or projects within a complex programme, including planning, prioritisation, tracking and reporting progress. - Educated to degree level, accounting qualification or equivalent experience - Ability to draw conclusions from financial data and to present options and recommendations to senior management. - Experience of building effective relationships with senior staff and external stakeholders and identifying and facilitating linkages between projects and work streams. - Excellent oral and written communication skills. Including the ability to write high quality documents, and to communicate complex analysis and issues to non-technical audiences. - Able to produce high quality analysis to tight timescales, while managing competing priorities. **Attributes** - Creates clarity - Delivers outcomes - Builds the team **Benefits** - Excellent employer pension contributions of nearly 29%. - 25 days’ annual leave (increasing to 30 with each year of service) plus bank holidays and an extra 2.5 days of privilege leave - Access to exclusive discounts on a variety of goods and services, including retail outlets, theatre tickets, holidays, insurance, and a gym membership - Flexible working arrangements that suit your lifestyle - Fees paid for membership of relevant professional bodies - Up to 3 volunteering days per year - Recognition vouchers scheme - Generous shared parental leave and pay - Enhanced sick pay - Regular development opportunities - Health and wellbeing initiatives - Cycle-to-work scheme - Season ticket loan for home-to-office travel - Free eye tests and contribution to lenses/spectacles for VDU users ## Skills ### Required - regulatory and corporate finance - accountancy - investor relations - government engagement - complex financial issues - leadership - project management - financial analysis - communication - stakeholder engagement --- Source: [Apply at jobsgopublic.com](https://www.jobsgopublic.com/job/head-regulatory-and-corporate-finance-strategy-104629?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)