Assistant Director (Performance and Policy)

Positive Employment is currently recruiting for an Assistant Director for our client a local government organisation in Devon.

The successful candidate will be one of two Assistant Directors reporting to the Director of Performance and Partnerships.

The role leads the development of policy, engaging with stakeholders and partnerships recognising system-wide engagement is significant to delivering the organisation’s priorities, improvement and performance. A clear understanding and recognition of the national and local context within which the organisation operates is a significant part of the role.

The job-holder will be responsible for the strategic management of:

• Performance Services - Corporate Performance Framework, Setting and measuring Directorate and Service impacts and outcomes, supporting Service Improvement programmes and statutory inspections, benchmarking and reporting.
• Data, Analysis, Intelligence and Management Information Services and Systems - supporting Council-wide service delivery, commissioning of services, evidence for decision-making; Market Intelligence and Technical Data and Information Systems.
• Policy - Strategic Priorities and Strategic Plan, Corporate Plan, Annual Performance Report, briefings and public affairs engagement in support of the organisation's priorities;

Partnerships - strategic national, regional and local partnerships and engagement

This role is initially a 6 month contract with the possibility to extend. Office attendance required - Agile working (50% home, 50% office).

Please note daily rate is negotiable.

Duties and Responsibilities but not limited to:

• Lead the Performance Service and be accountable for the development and operation of the organisation’s corporate performance framework, aligning service delivery and improvement with financial performance and risk management, establishing effective reporting and providing senior leaders and members with a strategic line of sight of key services and improvement priorities.
• Provide strategic operational oversight to deliver high-performing data and intelligence projects, systems, processes and reporting tools to support statutory and quality inspections across the organisation’s services, and develop evidence- informed needs assessments and data and intelligence strategies, to underpin Directorate key decisions including commissioning of high-quality services.
• Ensure compliance with GDPR, Data Sharing Agreements, Information Asset Registers, Risk Assessments, Data Quality Policies and lead the development of technical data and intelligence approaches ensuring best use of systems and reporting tools are applied organisationally including supporting statutory reporting and bench marking.
• Responsible for the development of the organisation’s Strategic Plan, and an annual corporate plan, leading engagement with Directorates to establish organisational improvement priorities and lead the production of an Annual report, working with the Senior Leadership Team and partners to report progress in a timely manner.
• Lead the organisation’s response to national policy development and consultations, working across local partnerships to create collaborative approaches to influencing national policy to support the organisation’s strategic priorities, including engaging with MPs, public sector system leaders and senior leadership team.
• Provide strategic and operational leadership to a range of corporate projects and programmes, providing insight and expertise to drive improvement, performance and ambition for high quality services across Devon.

Personal Requirements:

• Substantial leadership experience of performance, data and intelligence systems, strategy, policy development, and management of operational services at a senior level, ability to work across a complex, multi-disciplinary and sometime ambiguous landscape.
• Strong strategic capability ad experience across large, diverse and complex organisations, in a challenging and changing business environment.
• Substantial and successful experience of managing large projects, programmes and budgets.
• Politically astute and significant understanding of the political environment in which the organisation, partners and other customers operate.
• Strong financial management and planning skills.
• Strong communication skills. Able to negotiate, report and present to all levels of the organisation, including Elected Members, Senior Leaders, colleagues and partner organisation leads.
• Actively horizon scan at a local and national level, and develop new ideal, delivery model and approaches that support the delivery or corporate priorities and objectives.

Working Hours: 37hrs / 8:30am - 17:00pm / Monday to Friday

Pay: £600.00 per day

Please note this role is within the scope of IR35.