Heads of department responsibilities: an overview

Heads of Department are responsible to the Director for the effective operation and development of their Department or Institute, for the management of its staff and resources, for the provision of high quality services to its students and for ensuring that the Department complies with the legal and other obligations placed on the School. Specific tasks will, of course, be delegated to the Departmental Managers and other colleagues but Heads of Department bear ultimate responsibility and will need to satisfy themselves that delegated functions are undertaken properly.

The School does not want to provide a fixed template of tasks to be undertaken personally by Heads of Department rather than through delegation; it is recognized that much will depend on the size of the Department, the nature of its support staff and indeed the personalities involved. However, it is considered important that Heads of Department work closely with Departmental Managers and recognize the range of tasks which Managers can undertake to ensure the smooth running of the Department, the management of its resources and the development of plans and policies. In general Heads of Department should be able to devolve most day to day administrative, financial and compliance matters to the Departmental Managers. A generic job description for the Departmental Manager’s post, prepared by the Departmental Managers themselves, is appended at The role of Departmental Managers.

Heads of Department are expected to discharge their responsibilities in a consultative manner and to comply with the Code of Practice on Departmental Governance, which was agreed by the Academic Board and became binding on all academic units from session 1999-2000. Inter alia the code requires that Departmental plans are considered at Departmental meetings, that there should be transparency in the allocation of workloads and that departmental budgets are presented to staff annually.

^