Local Government Funding Strategy, Head of Strategy - London, United Kingdom - Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

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London, United Kingdom

3 weeks ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

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Description

Details:

Reference number:

Salary:

- £58,946

A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
Job grade:
Grade 6
Contract type:
Permanent
Business area:
Local Government Finance
Type of role:
Policy
Working pattern:
Flexible working, Fulltime, Job share, Parttime
Number of jobs available:
1Contents

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About the job

Benefits:

Things you need to know

Location

Darlington, LondonAbout the job

Job summary:

Reforms to the local government finance system would affect around 20 million households, all English councils and around £60 billion of local government expenditure.

The next few years bring the chance to make significant changes to the current local government finance and funding landscape.

Reforms must respond to political imperatives (devolution, levelling-up), help local government deliver and make taxpayer money work as hard as possible to deliver services for residents.

This postholder must co-ordinate activity across local government finance directorate to deliver for ministers and a large part of this is setting the future direction for local government finance reform.

The grade 6 postholder will need to be an experienced policy professional with a proven delivery record against complex, political policy, and have excellent organisational and communication skills.

This role will require a proven leader, someone who is at ease leading work with external stakeholders, across the directorate, department and wider Whitehall.

Job description:

Lead a high performing team of 15 policy, programme and business management professionals, all supporting the crosscutting work of local government finance directorate;
Report directly to the Local Government Finance (LGF) Director on the strategy for fiscal events and other crosscutting work and announcements, ensuring there is a clear LGF story across different work areas;
Use your unique position within the directorate to identify the key crosscutting issues that merit discussion with the senior leadership team, leading the team to identify and hold high quality discussions which lead to clear and agreed strategies for teams;
Lead the strategic work and planning necessary for reform of the local government finance landscape in the next parliament, working across the directorate and with ministers;
Advise on fiscal devolution policy and its future direction, as well as working with teams across the Department (those working on investment zones, devolution deals, and enterprise zones) and the Business Rates Operations team in LGF to secure what is agreed through deals and announcements;
Lead work on local government's sales, fees and charges income which is worth c. £14bn annually to local government;
Lead the programme office for the directorate, overseeing the governance arrangements which underpin our operation of a c. £23bn per annum business rates system, and a total annual local government finance Settlement of c. £60bn, where decisions are inherently complex and risky;
Oversee the team leading business management and the LGF office, ensuring the identification and delivery of directorate's corporate priorities, the directorate people plan, the effective management of headcount and underpinning resourcing strategy, directorate organisation and administration;
Work incredibly closely with two other G6 teams in the division: the Settlement and Distribution team which leads the annual Local Government Finance Settlement and advises on how to distribute resources to local government against ministerial objectives; and the Funding Pressures team which leads on the financial position of local government overall, monitoring that position and advising on pressures. There must be a "one team" approach across the whole team to advise ministers fully at fiscal events, and plan for future reforms.

The post holder will lead an experienced team, and work closely with analysts.
The post holder will also be expected to contribute to wider directorate culture and priorities, and be an important voice on priorities, culture and vision within the department's senior leadership

The post holder will:

Lead a happy, highperforming team
Play an active role in the wider corporate life of the directorate in line with our people priorities

Person specification:

The postholder will have:

A track record of developing and delivering evidencebased policy, drawing on relevant technical expertise to support wider, strategic objectives. This should include the ability to clearly communicate technical issues and solutions to ministers and nonexperts.
Strong leadership and management skills, with experience of setting direction and providing supportive leadership to a team with a large and varied portfolio, balancing immediate pressures and longterm priorities.
Proven ability to lead crosscutting work through building stro