Chair of Audit and Risk Committee

Welcome from the Chair 

Dear Candidate,

Thank you for your interest in joining LiveWest’s Board and chairing our Audit and Risk Committee (ARC), we hope that you will be inspired to get involved and share your skills and experience.

At LiveWest, we believe in a home for everyone. We own and manage over 40,000 homes across the South West, from Cornwall to Gloucestershire. We have ambitious plans to invest £1bn in the South West economy and to build 5,000 new homes in the region over the next five years.

This is part of LiveWest taking huge steps towards alleviating the region’s housing shortage, in an area of high housing need as well as high house prices which makes accessing housing particularly challenging for many families. We offer homes for affordable rent and shared ownership sale. We also build homes for private sale, to generate profits which we then use to provide and build more affordable homes.

We take the time to listen to, understand and learn from our customers. We focus on thriving as a business and employer so we can deliver more homes and even better services.

As well as meeting housing demand, it’s easy to forget the vital role that affordable homes contribute to economic development and prosperity, enabling local companies to recruit the workforce they need from their communities. LiveWest’s growth strategy will not only contribute to economic growth in the South West but sustain up to 7,000 jobs in the building industry and its supply chain.

With our current ARC Chair retiring in late 2024, we are excited to seek another highly motivated individual to support our top-performing organisation into the future. The first meeting will take place on Thursday 25^th July and you will begin a comprehensive induction before joining our Board and taking on the role of Chair in November 2024.  You will bring a specialism in finance and audit, relevant qualifications and be an experienced non-executive with a history of involvement in social housing at a senior level.  Chairing experience would be an advantage.

As they are under-represented in our non-executive roles, we particularly welcome applications from women and those living with a disability.  Studies have shown that people from under-represented groups can be less likely to apply for roles unless they meet every criteria.  At LiveWest we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace so if you’re excited about this role, but your experience doesn’t align perfectly, we encourage you to submit and application anyway.

We embrace a hybrid working approach at LiveWest and, while some of our meetings and training are held remotely, the commitment to attend meetings in-person, spend time in our business and become familiar with our geography is essential.

If, like us, you are commercially minded but have a social conscience, and put customers at the forefront of everything you do, we very much look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Jacqueline Starr, Group Chair