Transformation Project Manager

About the Borough

Found in zone 6 with good transport links in and out of London, Kingston is a vibrant and diverse university town which creates the rich sense of community shared across the borough and its Residents. Kingston boasts an idyllic riverside location, good shopping and great restaurants, as well as a mix of modern and historic town centre. Kingston has lots of open parklands and cycle routes that help connect the district town centres into an enjoyable place to live and work.

We are passionate about working closely with our residents and vulnerable groups to help them maintain their independence and create a balance between support and independent living.

About the Service and Team

At Kingston, we are passionate about our Royal Borough and want to be known as a Council that is an exemplar for engaging and involving our communities in shaping the future. This is a new era for the Council, we are redefining the relationships we have with our residents, community groups, businesses, voluntary sector, central government and other partners, to ensure we deliver our ambitions and priorities set out in our Corporate Plan ‘Making Kingston Better, Together’. Our Transformation Programme focuses on building on our strengths, challenging how we work, and delivering positive, sustainable outcomes. We aim to think differently about how services are delivered, working closely with our residents to meet their needs.

About the Service

This role sits within the Transformation & PMO team - the engine room driving change across the organisation. Kingston has developed a very ambitious transformation agenda, which includes a number of large strategic programmes that will transform the way services are delivered and improve outcomes for residents.

We are committed to delivering excellent public services to our residents and local businesses, which is why we place the user, and their needs, at the heart of what we do in all our service areas. As the council looks to implement a significant transformation programme, we are looking to recruit someone that can not only support and develop our services but who will be excited to define and deliver a new delivery model for customer services across the council that provides the best possible customer care to our residents.

As a team we are dynamic, innovative and supportive. We like to test and pilot new innovative ways of working and digital tools to help support project and programme delivery. The team has a dynamic skill set and we work together to support and learn from each other. If you enjoy working in a fast paced environment and working with multiple stakeholders then this is a very exciting time to join the team.

About the Role and Our Ideal Candidate

About the role

TheTransformation and Programme Management Office (PMO) team is recruiting an experienced project manager to deliver transformational change projects across programmes within the Corporate Transformation Portfolio. This role will join the team working flexibly across a number of high profile and complex projects as part of our corporate transformation programme. Ultimately the transformation programme works towards delivery financial sustainability, improving outcomes for residents as well as enhancing internal ways of working. We have emerging projects around community resilience and prevention, debt recovery and collection and internal ways of working that need to be scoped and would benefit from structure, pace and delivery that a Project Manager can help drive.

We are looking for an experienced and flexible Project Manager with strong leadership skills who is excited about tackling diverse challenges and multitasking.If you are solutions focused and like to work in a collaborative way to enable change and drive delivery then we would love to hear from you!

About you

To be successful in this role you will:

• Have a proven track record of managing complex change/ transformation projects in a public sector setting and delivery of positive outcomes
• Need to have strong leadership skills and be able to manage effective relationships across the organisation in a complex stakeholder environment, including matrix managing project working groups/ teams
• Be able to demonstrate strong stakeholder engagement and management skills, at all levels of the organisation
• Have a collaborative approach to delivering change, positive outcomes and benefits
• Be competent with PPM delivery models and core practices including; risk management, business case development, organisational skills, influencing and problem solving
• Successful track record of delivering benefits - financial and non financial
• Be an excellent communicator, problem solver and influencer

Our Offer to You

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits to enable staff to achieve a work life balance, some of which include:

• A generous annual leave entitlement of 25-32 days, plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply) depending on service and grade.
• Enhanced Maternity, Paternity, shared parental, adoption and dependents leave
• Three volunteering days per year in Kingston
• Hybrid working (dependent on the role)
• Flexible and agile working arrangements using Google Chromebooks
• Learning and development portal offering a range of courses
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
• Electric vehicle leasing scheme
• Confidential health & wellbeing and counselling support

Application Process

Apply online outlining what skills, abilities and experience you can bring which makes you an ideal candidate for this role. Please refer to the requirements outlined in the job profile when completing your application and check your CV details have been uploaded correctly in the relevant sections.

We understand and recognise the benefits of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace and are embracing AI where appropriate, to boost our productivity and streamline how we deliver our Council services efficiently; to provide the best possible outcomes for our residents and communities.
However, we reserve the right to reject applications where it is apparent that AI-generated content has been used in isolation and without personalised responses. At Kingston we value authenticity and are looking for individuals who can clearly demonstrate their own skills, experience and motivation for the role that they are applying for and embrace and demonstrate our STAR values.
Here at Kingston we have core values of Transparency and this is to be demonstrated during the application process and completion of the supporting statement and will be further tested at interview and selection stage for those who progress forward.

The closing date is given as a guide. We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received, it is strongly advised that you complete and submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

As part of our award winning Diversity Programme we anonymise all applications received to reduce conscious and unconscious bias enabling every application to be reviewed on the knowledge, skills and experience shown in your application. We encourage our interview panels to be as diverse as possible (age, cultural, neurodiverse etc.) to reduce bias where possible. We are fully committed to removing barriers and enhancing the diversity of our workforce.

Additional Information

We are proud to be a diverse and welcoming Borough and we strive to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve, and instil a sense of belonging in our staff. We celebrate and respect differences and appreciate the value of having a diverse workforce, therefore we welcome applications from under represented groups.

To support our workers and their families we offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are also proud to be a disability confident employer and guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for a role. As an accredited London Living Wage Employer all our employees are guaranteed the London Living Wage regardless of their length or type of contract.

The UK has a points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance. Sponsorship availability varies and is subject to eligibility requirements and budget limitations. As a result, we cannot guarantee sponsorship for all roles and will evaluate sponsorship requests on a case-by-case basis.