Principal Manager Public Health

Our Story:

Halton is a vibrant local authority with a rich history and heritage, featuring two iconic bridges that connect communities across the River Mersey. Located in Cheshire, Halton boasts excellent transport links between Liverpool and Manchester, as well as close proximity to both Liverpool John Lennon and Manchester Airports.

Our progressive community strategy aims to bring about meaningful, long-term improvements that enhance lives. It’s an exciting time to join us as we develop new policies and transform the way people access services.

We are immensely proud that when asked what’s great about working for Halton, the most popular response from our workforce has been ‘our colleagues’.

Our Team:

This role is accountable to the Head of Health and Wellbeing and will be responsible for developing a system wide approach to increasing the uptake of physical activity participation across Halton.

You will work across the Local Authority and wider system to organise, lead, motivate and innovate ensuring physical activity participation and engagement is prioritised and expanded in Halton.

Managing a small team who are focused on delivering improved physical activity participation rates in Halton and focusing on accessibility to physical activity for a range of demographics and groups across the borough.

Hours: 37per week

This is a fixed term contract role, funded until 31/03/2026.

Your Contributions:

• Provide strategic and operational leadership in the development and implementation of physical activity system change. Focusing on policy, strategy, and interventions, offering expert advice across the local authority and wider health and care systems.
• Lead and manage Halton’s place-based physical activity approach. Ensuring the small team is managed effectively through effective supervision, resource management, performance monitoring, and adherence to targets and objectives.
• Utilise local data, evidence and resources to embed physical activity in a system wide change process, delivering on targets and outcomes focused on physical activity
• Identify staff development and training needs related to the expansion of physical activity of front line staff both internal and across the wider Health and Care system in Halton.
• Oversee governance, finance, and communication processes, maintaining robust documentation, budget management, reporting, and strategic planning to ensure accountability, best value, and cost-effective service provision.

Our Offer:

Aside from working with a great team, our employees have access to a fantastic range of benefits, including:

• A generous annual holiday allowance starting at 34 days per year (including bank holidays), increasing with long service with the option to purchase an additional four-days of unpaid leave for our Annual Christmas Closedown
• Membership of our defined benefit, salary-linked Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) with generous employer contributions
• Essential car user allowance
• 3 x Salary Life Cover via Local Government Pension Scheme
• Investment in your personal development
• Free Car Parking at HBC sites
• Extensive employee benefits platform including discounted shopping, car leasing, gym memberships, wellbeing hub and Employee Assistance Programme.

Next Steps:

At Halton Borough Council, we want all of our candidates to feel well-informed so if you would like to have an informal chat about this role, please contact Ian Baddiley ian.baddiley@halton.gov.uk

Interviews will take place w/c 16th March 2026.

At Halton Borough Council we want to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce and a vital part of this is to encourage diversity in all respects. We are committed to making our recruitment practices barrier-free and tailored to best suit the needs and strength of the individual. This includes making adjustments for people with a disability, neurodiversity or with long-term health conditions. If you require accommodations, please reach out during the recruitment process so that we can make this the best possible experience for you – resourcing@halton.gov.uk

Please refer to the attached Job Profile for further information about the role and our values.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy earlier than the specified date should we receive sufficient applications. If you’re interested, please complete your application as early as possible.

We look forward to receiving your application!