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About the Role

As an Information Rights Manager, Requests, you will carry out a range of duties to ensure the University’s compliance with information rights legislation (including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)).  The postholder’s focus will be on the processing of requests under the UK GDPR and the FOIA, calling for a highly organised approach with an acute attention to detail.

The role will be based within the Governance, Compliance & Legal Services (GCLS) which oversees the overall governance and compliance structure of the University and ensures the integrity of the conduct of its business.

The successful candidate will have a key role in the data protection and FOIA compliance activities across one of the largest Universities in Europe in a fast-developing regulatory environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage the processing of requests under information compliance legislation (Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, Subject Access Requests (SARS), requests for erasure of personal data and other rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)), which will involve:
  • Prioritising and managing the flow of information rights requests to ensure that requests are replied to within the statutory deadline,
  • Identifying and extracting requests information from across the University,
  • Structuring and ordering the often-complex sets of data received, and
  • Applying, with the support of the Senior Manager exemptions and redacting the information.
• Support the Data Protection Officer (DPO) and senior managers in pro-actively ensuring data protection compliance through:
  • Maintenance and analysis of relevant data and management information and the preparation of reports, and statistical information as requested, and
  • Contribution to and involvement within awareness and training activities for staff.
• Provide advice and, if required guidance documents, to colleagues on how they can ensure compliance with data protection and information rights legislation. Supporting them, if required, in completing Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), to ensure that the appropriate safeguards (technical and organisational) have been applied to mitigate any risks to the rights and freedoms of data subjects.
• Stay up to date with developments in relevant regulatory data compliance requirements and internal developments within the University to enable the most up to date expertise, advice and guidance to be provided to both internal and external stakeholders.
• Any other duties commensurate with the role.

About You

Essential:

• Communication: Communicates effectively with a variety of audiences; has a proven understanding of the need for confidentiality; negotiates well and appropriately manages conflict.
• Planning and Organising: Plans, prioritises and allocates work effectively and delivers to multiple and pressurised deadlines.
• Analytical thinking: Gathers information in order to understand complex issues and uses initiative and creative thinking to solve identified problem.
• Service Delivery: Proven track of sustaining attention to detail and ensuring a high level of accuracy and service delivery even when under pressure.
• Teamwork: Is respectful and actively inclusive towards others, builds productive and collaborative working relationships across and beyond their employer to realise common goals.
• Ability to learn: Understands and adapts to new ways of working; is willing and able to engage with, and digest, new information, technologies and ways of working.
• Knowledge: Demonstrates an understanding of the key concepts and principles of data protection and compliance legislation and has experience of their application.
• Proficient in the use of general office IT systems (particularly Microsoft Office products).
• Educated to degree level or equivalent level of professional experience.

Desirable:

• Professional Information Rights qualification.
• Practical experience of providing data protection and information rights guidance to staff with differing levels of understanding and processing information rights requests (e.g. Subject Access Requests & Freedom of Information).
• Knowledge of The Open University systems and processes involved in gathering, storing and collecting personal data.

Support with your application

If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.

What's in it for you?

At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).

Flexible working

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.

It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d anticipate this to be on average once per month.

Next steps in the Recruitment process

We anticipate that we will be conducting interviews for this role during the week commencing 13 April 2026.

Early closing date notification

While most roles will remain open until the advertised closing date, applications may be reviewed on an ongoing basis. In some cases, vacancies may close earlier if a sufficient number of suitable applications has been received and equality impacts have been appropriately considered. All roles will remain advertised for a minimum of one week before any early closure is implemented.If you have started an application or were in the process of applying when the advert closed, we encourage you to get in touch. We are committed to understanding individual circumstances and can offer further support where needed, including reasonable adjustments for applicants with protected characteristics.

How to apply

To apply for this role please submit the following documents:

• CV
• A personal statement of up to 1000 words. You should set out in your statement why you are interested in the role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the criteria for this role as detailed above within the job description.

You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system.  Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.