Strategic Lead North Paddington Programme WCC619176

Job Details:

Salary range: £76,554 - £85,413 per annum
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP
Hours per week: 36
Contract type: Temporary for 6 months from February 2025 (potential for extension) 
Politically Restricted post: Yes
Closing date: 24 November 2024
Interview date: 2 December 2024  
Contact details for Informal discussion: Serena Simon, Director of Communities, via email: SSIMON@WESTMINSTER.GOV.UK

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF GRACE’S PASSION AND DEDICATION

The Environment & Communities Directorate in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where dedicated people like Grace are using their skills and passion to progress environmental action in the heart of London.

It was at university where Grace first started campaigning for improved recycling facilities, water refill stations, and other eco friendly initiatives. When she saw the real difference people could make when they came together, she knew she wanted to dedicate her career to community action for the planet.

When she joined us as Principal Engagement Officer, Climate Emergency, she quickly established herself as a passionate advocate for community outreach, engaging various stakeholders across Westminster in the social causes, impacts and solutions to climate change, air pollution, and biodiversity loss.

Grace became a driving force behind our first Citizens’ Climate Assembly, which took place across two weekends in the summer of 2023. Fifty residents were chosen at random from across our diverse communities to come together, learn about the climate emergency, and deliberate how we overcome the barriers to becoming a net zero city by 2040. The assembly produced several recommendations which have informed the evolution of our Climate Emergency Action Plan. Due to the success of this initiative, we’re holding more assemblies to continue community involvement in local decision-making.

To see the work of the Westminster Citizens’ Climate Assembly, click here.

The Role:

As North Paddington Strategic Lead you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster’s success. The North Paddington Programme works in partnership with local people and uses community engagement to widen our reach and improve relationships with the people of this vibrant area. When you join us you’ll focus on developing our strategic focus with the aim of ensuring better outcomes and services for residents and other stakeholders. Leading the promotion and future development of the programme, and working to achieve cross-organisational support, we’ll also expect you to develop an insights process that allows us to understand the evolving needs of the area.

Ensuring participation remains at the heart of the programme and aligns with the needs of the local communities, you’ll offer confident and professional stakeholder management, and liaise across services to gain information updates and review service improvements. You’ll also provide frequent updates relating to the progress, risks and mitigations to the programme, lead on the development of a suite of documents and reporting, and oversee the planning and implementation of community events and projects.

You’ll have a number of other important responsibilities – these include deploying problem solving approaches that enable the programme to progress in line with required milestones, providing leadership that encourages your colleagues to recognise their contribution to our objectives, and fostering  a culture of high standards, performance and accountability. We’ll also expect you to ensure tight budgetary controls and prioritise use of resources to support the delivery of the council’s City for All vision, champion our approach to unified public services, and develop change management programmes that deliver improvements to the services we provide.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information.

About You:

To be a success in this exciting senior role you’ll have extensive stakeholder management skills, and the ability to brief and summarise a wide variety of information and present it to a diverse range of audiences. You should possess well developed experience of coordinating work across multi-disciplinary Council departments and external stakeholders, be capable of leading and overseeing programmes, and be willing to co produce and innovate with local communities.

You should have good financial and budget management skills with the ability to determine, analyse, monitor and evaluate performance indicators and data, and present complex information in an understandable way. Capable of motivating your colleagues to deliver against their objectives, your strong interpersonal skills will allow you to connect with a wide range of different audiences, particularly senior managers and Members.

We’ll expect you to be a strong negotiator with the ability to summarise recommendations and influence key stakeholders, while your inspirational leadership and communication skills will see you inspiring and empowering everyone you work with. It’s important that you have confident IT skills, with a particular focus on the Microsoft Office 365 suite of applications and PPM tool and techniques, and you should also be strongly committed to the principles of equity, inclusion and diversity.

The Council is committed to achieving diverse shortlists to support our desire to increase the number of staff from underrepresented groups in our workforce. We especially encourage applications from a Global Majority ( GM), people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as 'ethnic minorities' ( formally known as B.A.M.E , Black, Asian and multiple ethnic) background and, while the role is open to all applicants,  we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments.

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.   

At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit  https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties  

As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.  

The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.