Assistant Company Secretary

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View more categories View less categories Sector Administration and Secretarial Role Assistant Contract Type Permanent Hours Full Time

About Network Rail
Join Our Team at Network Rail!
Are you ready to make a difference in people's lives? At Network Rail, we connect passengers and freight customers, ensuring safe and efficient transportation across the country.
We're dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive organisation that reflects the passengers we serve. To achieve this, we're committed to becoming an open, diverse, and inclusive workplace, leveraging the skills and expertise of our talented workforce. Together, we strive to create a safe and accessible railway for everyone.
Investing in our people is key to enhancing the safety, reliability, and efficiency of our railway system. If you're passionate about making a meaningful impact, then this opportunity is for you!

Vacancy Details
Duration: Permanent
Location: This role is based in London Waterloo General Offices. This role is a full-time opportunity, flexible working patterns will be considered.
Band & Salary: Band 3C 55,596 - 63,797
Closing date: 23rd January. On occasions, we may need to close the advert early based upon application volumes. Late applications may not be accepted.
Next Steps: Interviews will be held W/C 3rd February, depending on business requirements.

Who are we looking for?
We are looking for an experienced corporate governance professional (Chartered Company Secretary) with familiarity with Board and committee management, subsidiary governance and the UK Corporate Governance Code 2024. They should be able to build good working relationships with colleagues at all levels across the organisation. Our ideal candidate is someone who is proactive and accountable for delivering excellent board and committee governance, projects, and management within specified timeframes. They will be articulate and provide governance advice and high-quality meeting minutes while ensuring to act professionally and discretely.

About the role (External)
About the team
At Network Rail, an arms length public authority that operates with the prestige and standards of an equivalent FTSE 50 listed company in the UK, our Governance & Secretariat Team is at the forefront of excellence. Led by the Deputy Company Secretary, our team of experienced chartered secretaries provides unparalleled governance advice and comprehensive board and committee management services. We operate at both strategic and operational levels, ensuring the highest standards of governance across Network Rail.

What does the average day look like?
The purpose of this role is to deliver, as part of a team, Network Rail's commitment to comply with relevant company law, regulation, and best practice corporate governance principles, particularly the UK Corporate Governance Code. This involves:

1. Advising on corporate governance, ensuring Network Rail complies with the UK Corporate Governance Code and advising on its application.
2. Managing, attending, and minuting a portfolio of board and committee meetings.
3. Project managing and contributing to the group annual report and accounts.
4. Working on other corporate governance and secretariat projects and tasks as required.
5. Monitoring and evaluating developments in UK company law, regulation, the UK Corporate Governance Code and corporate governance best practice.
6. Within the Network Rail governance framework, managing boards and committees including the preparation of agendas, meeting papers, use of the board portal, tracking and collating feedback on actions and attending and minuting meetings.
7. Developing, supporting and implementing subsidiary governance oversight.
8. Signing and sealing contracts in accordance with delegated authority approval policies.
9. Working on the Network Rail Limited Annual Report and Accounts project, helping to deliver the project on time and to the necessary standard to lay the accounts before Parliament prior to publication.
10. Identifying actual or potential risks from non-compliance with company law, regulation and/or corporate governance, and recommending actions to eliminate or mitigate those risks.
11. Assisting and supporting the Deputy Company Secretary on corporate transactions and other projects or initiatives as required.
12. Completing other company secretarial tasks that may include, but are not limited to, managing the trademarks portfolio; managing the portfolio of company secretariat owned risks.

Essential Criteria
Member of the ICSA: The Governance Institute
Experience of working at a senior level within a company secretarial function
Articulate, numerate and well organised
Extremely high level of attention to detail
Knowledge and experience of Company Law and Combined Code requirements
Discrete

Desirable Criteria
Ability to work independently, using initiative and being proactive
Ability to work under pressure to a high standard

Company

Every day, 4.8 million people use our network. Keeping Britain moving and building a better railway for the future is full of challenges – but also tremendous opportunities.

From our commitments to your development, our range of benefits and our approach to Diversity & Inclusion, we believe there are many reasons to join the team at Network Rail.

We’re proactive in empowering employees with the knowledge to help them progress. We encourage all our employees to be ambitious, and offer great training and career development opportunities. As the railway becomes bigger and more technologically advanced, it’s crucial that our employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead.

We believe that investing in our people is one of the most effective ways of improving the safety, reliability and efficiency of the railway.

We also know that it’s vital to get each individual’s training programme just right. As well as helping us to meet our immediate needs, we believe this is an approach that encourages people to stay with us and develop their careers.

Your health, wellbeing and benefits

We believe that safety and performance go hand in hand and this doesn’t just mean safety on the railway! We are committed to the wellbeing of our employees and believe that should come first.

We provide access to support services such as our employee assistance program to help you with finances, family, health and wellbeing. In addition to this, we offer excellent benefits, are sensitive to work-life balance and encourage our employees to use their 5 volunteer days for their favourite causes.

We have a range of benefits including:

• 28 days annual leave entitlement.
• My benefits – Our discounted online shopping site.
• A range of discounted offers including childcare vouchers, Healthcare offers – cycle to work, healthcare club discounted membership and other benefits.
• Subsidies of up to 75% on rail and underground season tickets.
• A range of pension schemes.
• 2 weeks paid reserve leave for our Armed Forces community.

What Diversity and Inclusion means to us

‘Diversity’ means recognising differences between people while valuing the contribution they make. ‘Inclusion’ means creating safe and welcoming workplaces with fair cultures that encourage innovative and fresh ways of thinking.

Our aspiration is that the behaviours and actions that support diversity and inclusion will come from the conviction of everyone here at Network Rail – making diversity and inclusion a conscious part of how we run our business throughout Britain.

Disability Confident Leader

Network Rail is an accredited Disability Confident Leader. This means, where a disabled applicant meets the essential criteria for any of our vacancies, they will receive an interview.

Find out more about our recruitment process here.