Compliance manager - property services

As the Property Compliance Manager, you will lead the delivery of statutory and regulatory compliance across Cambridgeshire County Council's diverse property portfolio, including corporate buildings, operational sites, maintained schools and the rural estate. You will play a critical role in ensuring that all properties remain safe, legally compliant and fit for purpose, supporting the Council in fulfilling its duties as a responsible landlord. Reporting to the Head of Facilities Management and Compliance, you will manage a team of specialist compliance professionals and provide strategic leadership across key compliance areas. These include asbestos management, water hygiene (Legionella), fire safety, and wider property-related health and safety, security and accessibility requirements. You will be responsible for developing and delivering the Council's corporate property compliance strategy and assurance framework, ensuring robust governance, performance monitoring and reporting to senior leaders and boards. The role requires strong oversight of compliance data and systems, using insight to drive continuous improvement and ensure consistent standards across a varied estate. A key part of the role is the management of specialist compliance contracts, including procurement, performance monitoring and budget control, ensuring value for money and effective delivery of statutory programmes. You will also provide expert technical advice, guidance and training to internal teams, schools and service managers, helping to embed a strong compliance culture across the organisation. Working collaboratively with internal stakeholders, regulators and external partners, you will lead on responding to compliance risks, audits, inspections and incidents, ensuring that appropriate corrective actions are implemented. You will build effective relationships across services, acting as a trusted adviser and enabling colleagues to understand and meet their compliance responsibilities. This is a high‑impact leadership role, requiring strong technical expertise, strategic thinking and the ability to influence at all levels to drive a proactive and positive approach to property compliance across the Council.

Responsibilities

• Leading and managing statutory property compliance across the Council's estate, ensuring all buildings meet legal, regulatory and safety requirements.
• Developing and delivering the corporate property compliance strategy and assurance framework, aligned to the wider Land and Property Strategy.
• Managing a team of compliance specialists, providing direction, support and professional leadership to ensure a high‑performing and capable service.
• Overseeing key compliance areas including asbestos, water hygiene (Legionella), fire safety, security, accessibility and contractor control.
• Managing specialist compliance contracts, including procurement, performance monitoring and budget oversight to ensure value for money and effective delivery.
• Ensuring all statutory inspections, risk assessments, surveys and remedial actions are completed, recorded and auditable across the portfolio.
• Monitoring compliance performance through data and reporting systems, using insights to drive continuous improvement and inform decision‑making.
• Providing expert technical advice, guidance and training to internal teams, schools and service managers to support them in meeting their compliance responsibilities.
• Leading on audits, inspections, incident response and investigations, including engagement with regulators such as the HSE and Fire & Rescue where required.
• Building strong working relationships with internal stakeholders, external partners and contractors to support effective service delivery and a positive compliance culture.
• Contributing to governance and reporting arrangements, preparing and presenting updates to senior leadership teams, boards and committees.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self‑organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

Qualifications

You will be an experienced compliance or health and safety professional with strong knowledge of property‑related statutory compliance, ideally gained within a complex, multi‑site environment such as the public sector.

In‑depth knowledge of key compliance areas including asbestos, water hygiene (Legionella), fire safety and wider property health and safety legislation.

• Proven experience of managing statutory compliance across a diverse property portfolio, ensuring legal requirements are met and risks are effectively controlled.
• Strong leadership skills, with experience of managing and developing teams to deliver high‑quality, customer‑focused services.
• Experience of managing contractors and service providers, including procurement, performance management and budget oversight.
• The ability to interpret, analyse and use compliance data to monitor performance, identify risks and drive continuous improvement.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to provide clear, pragmatic advice to a wide range of stakeholders, including senior leaders, operational managers and external partners.
• Experience of working with regulators and managing audits, inspections and incident investigations.
• A proactive and solutions‑focused approach, with the ability to balance compliance requirements with operational needs.

Additional Responsibilities

You will also be comfortable working both strategically and operationally, able to lead on corporate initiatives while ensuring day‑to‑day compliance activity is delivered effectively. A strong commitment to collaboration, customer focus and continuous improvement will be key to success in this role.

Location

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro‑rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• A Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in‑store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes