Legal Compliance Counsel, Cancer Research
£65-75k
Excel
Senior and Expert level
London
More information about location
1-2 days a week in office (Stratford, London)
Cancer prevention, awareness and research charity
Posted today
Cancer prevention, awareness and research charity
1001+ employees
HealthcarePersonal healthCharitySocial ImpactMedTech
Posted today
£65-75k
Excel
Senior and Expert level
London
More information about location
1-2 days a week in office (Stratford, London)
1001+ employees
HealthcarePersonal healthCharitySocial ImpactMedTech
Company mission
To prevent, control and cure cancer through ground-breaking research.
Role
Who you are
- Experienced Legal professional with significant post-qualification experience in corporate governance and compliance (either within private practice or in-house environments)
- Ideally understands charity compliance and/ or has experience in the not-for-profit sector (this is desirable but not essential, meaning we welcome applicants without this experience)
- Independently provided expert legal advice on compliance, governance, and regulatory requirements (e.g., business law, charity commission, financial regulations, procurement, health & safety, data protection, etc.,)
- Strong prioritisation and organisation skills with the ability to work independently with minimal supervision, while managing multiple projects and delivering to deadlines with strong attention to detail
- Has built credible and collaborative stakeholder relationships with experience influencing at all levels (including leadership) and clear verbal and written communication
- Demonstrable problem solving, analytical, and business intelligence skills
- IT literate – MS Office (including Word, Excel and Outlook)
- Able to work both independently and collaboratively as part of a team
What the job involves
- As Legal Compliance Counsel, you will play an essential role in safeguarding the charity by overseeing legal compliance and litigation management across the organisation.
- This will involve helping to develop and implement Cancer Research UK’s legal compliance strategy, while mapping and managing legal compliance, regulatory requirements, and internal policies.
- Furthermore, you will influence and partner across the organisation (including Risk, Assurance, Insurance, Finance, ESG etc.), advising on business law and risk management to embed effective litigation management procedures and regulatory compliance
- Overseeing and mapping Cancer Research UK’s legal compliance, regulatory requirements, and internal policies
- Supporting the Head of Legal in developing Cancer Research UK’s legal compliance strategy, including:
- Developing and implementing the legal compliance framework and strategy
- Drafting policies, updates, templates, and contracts (including third parties)
- Providing training and awareness across the charity (e.g., developing training programmes to educate employees and volunteers on legal requirements and the impact of non-compliance)
- Maintaining compliance registers
- Ensuring compliance with charity law
- Horizon scanning and providing legal and regulatory updates
- Keeping abreast of relevant laws and regulations that impact the charity and communicating updates to the wider organisation
- Advising and enabling our partners across the organisation on key implementation projects (e.g., the responsible use of generative AI)
- Advising on risk management topics such as anti-money laundering, fraud, anti-bribery and corruption, and safeguarding
- Business partnering with teams operating outside of the UK to strengthen compliance with local legislation
- Supporting with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy initiatives to ensure legal compliance (e.g., sustainability and modern slavery laws and regulations, etc.)
- Providing legal and governance support to the Heads of Legal and General Counsel
- Supporting the Heads of Legal and General Counsel in complying with the Charity Commission’s requirements on serious incident reporting and key regulatory updates
- Collaborating across the organisation to ensure timely reporting for the Charity Commission
- Overseeing litigation management across the charity while collaborating with Risk, Insurance, and Finance to develop and embed effective litigation management procedures
- Partnering closely with the Head of Risk, Head of Assurance, and the Assurance team to develop a legally compliant assurance framework
- Overseeing, establishing, and updating legal compliance, risk, litigation, and assurance mapping; and providing ongoing gap analysis
- Advising on and managing business law issues (including corporate matters, procurement, health and safety, data protection, and governance)
- Reporting on current legal and compliance performance, highlighting or escalating areas of concern, and contributing to robust and effective compliance controls across the organisation
- Collaborate with other departments (e.g., Assurance, Risk, Data Protection, and ESG) to create a collective culture of compliance
- Assist the Head of Legal in providing in-house legal advice
Application process
- Recruitment process: Two competency-based interviews
- Interview date: From the week commencing 17 and/ or 24 March 2025 (we will be shortlisting on a rolling basis)
- Closing date: 13 March 2025 23:55
- CVs are required for all applications; but we won’t be able to view them until we invite you for an interview. Instead, we ask you to fully complete the work history section of the online application form for us to be able to assess you quickly, fairly, and objectively
Salary benchmarks
Our take
The world’s largest independent cancer research charity, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) was founded from a merger between the Cancer Research Campaign and the Cancer Research Fund in 2002. CRC and ICRF had been longstanding pinnacles of the British medical institution, their work dating back to 1902 and 1923 respectively, and the merger signalled a strong step forward for UK medical institutes’ global influence.
A multi-armed charity, CRUK uses both grant-funded researchers and its own employed staff to research the treatments and causes of cancer, whilst its striking advertising and marketing campaigns are responsible for influencing public policy on the causes, prevention, and treatment of the disease. An example of a significant public campaign was Stoptober, which appeared to have triggered a third of a million smokers at the time to try quit tobacco throughout the month of October.
Alongside its pharmaceutical efforts, in 2023 CRUK funded clinical trials for the first-ever proton beam therapy for breast cancer, indicating a focus on technological innovations in the fight against cancer. On this subject, CRUK has also taken part in a billion-pound investment in the Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research institute that is aiming to make England an international leader in the industry.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Led by a woman
9% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company benefits
- Health & Wellbeing - Health and wellbeing are important to us. We want our people to have time away from work to support their different commitments, needs and interests
- Our occupational health and mental wellbeing support are accompanied by online health assessment tools, Our confidential employee assistance programme is available to all to provide support for any concerns in your work or personal life for ongoing everyday support or free counselling if you need it. We also have a team of Mental Health First Aiders supporting across the organisation
- Our occupational health and mental wellbeing support are accompanied by online health assessment tools, Our confidential employee assistance programme is available to all to provide support for any concerns in your work or personal life for ongoing everyday support or free counselling if you need it
- We also have a team of Mental Health First Aiders supporting across the organisation
- UK-wide savings - Our staff have access to a wide range of discounts, benefits and cashback deals to support you with your financial wellbeing, through our Rewards platform. We offer an online savings and discounts portal covering many widely recognised retailers and brands from electronics, groceries, home and leisure, holidays and more
- Cancer Research UK staff can take advantage of savings through a cycle to work scheme, or an interest free loan to help spread the cost of travel season tickets. Staff also enjoy great benefits in and around our head office in Stratford, London with deals at local shops, bars and restaurants
- Income Protection and Life Assurance - We provide all staff with free insurance policies, paying 50% of your salary if you are unable to work through illness, and up to 4 times your salary for your beneficiaries should the unthinkable happen and you die while in our employment
- Flexible Working - We want our people to have time away from work to support their different commitments, needs and interests. We encourage a flexible working culture, including options such as home-working, reduced or flexi-hours, job shares, job-splits, compressed and core hours
- We offer a high level of flexibility for the vast majority of our office-based roles, meaning that you’ll only be required to work from a specific location for 1 or 2 days a week on average
- Annual Leave - For the majority of our roles we offer 25 days holiday a year plus bank holidays, and an extra day for Christmas Eve. You can choose to use the religious bank holidays flexibly. On top of this, you can choose to buy up to 1 week’s additional holiday each year
Company values
- Bold: Act with ambition, courage and determination
- Credible: Act with rigour and professionalism
- Human: Act to have a positive impact on people
- Together: Act inclusively and collaboratively
Company HQ
Stratford, London, UK
Articles
Leadership
Previously Non-Executive Director of NHS England for 4 years, and Chief Executive of the MS Society for 5 years.
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