Overview
Public Inquiries Manager
Grade A – £52,737 (National) or £58,409 (London – for London office based or homebased workers within the boundary of the M25) – There is also an additional homeworking allowance of £581 per annum for those working from home.
Contracted Hours: Full time 37 hours per week. Flexible working and compressed hours will also be considered.
Contract Type: Permanent
Location: Home-based
Closing date: Tuesday 4 November 2025 at 11.59pm
Make a difference
Every role at CQC contributes to our mission, If you’re looking for a new role in Legal Services that gives a true sense of meaning and purpose, then you’ve found it! As a Public Inquiries Manager, you’ll play a vital role in ensuring CQC responds to public inquiries and investigations with efficiency , accuracy integrity, transparency, and care-helping us learn and improve for the future.Picture this
Imagine leading a team that manages CQC’s response to high-profile public inquiries-where your work helps shape how health and care services are held to account and improved for everyone.As a Public Inquiries Manager in the Legal Services team, you might get the chance to:
- Design, Develop and improve internal processes for managing inquiry responses, ensuring learning is captured, integrated and shared across the organisation.
- Lead/Contribute to CQC’s preparations for national public inquiries, coordinating evidence gathering and preparing witnesses with care and professionalism.
The role
You’ll be key in helping us deliver our work. In this role, you’ll:
- Lead and manage a team: Oversee the public inquiries team, prioritising workloads, allocating tasks, and supporting team wellbeing and manage the discovery and disclosure team and its strategy
- Be the ‘corporate centre’ for the team and project manage the team leading on HR, Finance, processes, briefings, L and D, wellbeing and beyond.
- Coordinate inquiry responses: Work across CQC to gather, analyse and submit information to public inquiries, ensuring deadlines and legal obligations are met where necessary.
- Engage with stakeholders: Build strong relationships with inquiry secretariats, government departments, and internal teams to ensure clear communication and collaboration and feedback any findings to make changes
Show us
We will be looking for specific skills, knowledge and experience in your application form:
Experience supporting inquiries or investigations: You’ve worked on public inquiries/inquests, reviews, or similar processes, handling sensitive information and supporting organisational responses.
- Ability to analyse evidence and advise senior leaders: You’ve reviewed complex information and legal considerations to provide clear, confident recommendations to senior colleagues.
- Project and team leadership: You’ve led or coordinated projects or teams, managing competing priorities and delivering results under pressure.
- Project Management: you have the skills set to provide process and structure to create efficiencies and systemise our ‘operational processes.
Join us and help CQC shape the future of health and care.
Compliance
To progress your application, you’ll need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK. Without valid right to work you won’t be eligible for the role. We are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. Some roles may also be subject to a satisfactory DBS check.
Next steps
If you apply, you’ll need to create a profile and complete an online application form. Your application will be completely anonymous. Please see our information for applicants for more details on the process. We contact every applicant to let them know the outcome of their application, so you will hear from us whether or not you are shortlisted.
You can read the full details of the role in the Job Description
If you’d like an informal chat about the role contact – Suleman Patel, Deputy Director Public Inquiries; Suleman.Patel@cqc.org.uk . For general enquiries, please email recruitment@cqc.org.uk .
The Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits , including:
- Annual leave starting at 27 days per year, rising to 32.5 days with service, plus bank holidays (usually 8 days per year).
- Training and development opportunities.
- Wellbeing initiatives, such as gym discounts and meditation.
- NHS pension scheme, with around 14% employer contribution.
- Discount schemes (including eligibility for a Blue Light card, at a cost of £4.99 and valid for 2 years), reward vouchers, car leasing and more!
Please see our benefits page for the full list.
Equity for all
We know job descriptions can feel intimidating. Research shows they can cause some people to doubt whether they’re a good fit. This happens more often to people from underrepresented groups (e.g. ethnic minority backgrounds). If this role interests you, we encourage you to apply. Your unique perspective, skills, and experience could be exactly what we need.
We want every candidate to feel supported and able to do their best. If you need adjustments to our process, we’ll work with you to remove any barriers. Visit our accessibility page for more on this. If you’d like to chat, please contact recruitment@cqc.org.uk . Please note, if you have previously informed us of adjustments you need for interview or within your role these are not carried over and must be discussed for each individual application you make.
We promote a workplace where fairness, respect and inclusion are a priority. Diverse teams make our work better, help us deliver our mission and make our culture stronger. See our ED&I page for more about this.
We welcome applications from everyone, and colleagues can find support and community among our many employee networks. This includes people of any:
- Age
- Sex
- Gender identity or expression
- Sexual orientation
- Religion or belief
- Ethnicity
- Disability
Values and vision
We are guided by our core values, which shape our work and our culture.
Excellence – being a high-performing organisation.
Caring – treating everyone with dignity and respect.
Integrity – doing the right thing.
Teamwork – learning from each other to be the best we can.
We are a disability confident employer and a carer confident employer.
A Note on AI
AI tools can be great for research and refining ideas, but we want to learn about you. If you use AI or Chatbots to help you with your application, keep these points in mind:
- AI can support research, structuring and refining your writing, but your application must reflect your real skills and experience.
- Spell-checking and condensing word counts are great ways to use AI effectively.
- Do not copy and paste AI generated answers. These will not help you stand out; remember we want to hear about your skills and experience.
- Providing false and insincere examples goes against our core values of honesty and integrity and may lead to your application being withdrawn or termination of your employment.
IMPORTANT: Before applying for this role, please make sure you have the right to work in the country where the role is based. Unless it clearly stipulates within in the job advert above that the hiring company is looking to or able to sponsor applicants it is deemed that the hiring employer will only consider applications from those able to comply with and work in the country where the role is based.
