Role Profile = DRAFT
1 PURPOSE OF YOUR JOB
Provide leadership and strategic direction, inspire team working and high standards of service delivery within the service areas ensuring that mechanisms are put in place to sustain, and improve performance to enable the Council to deliver the Council Plan.
Through the provision, maintenance, servicing and expansion of Councils infrastructure and regulation of commercial and private activity deliver a public environment conducive to enhancing the lived experience and opportunities of residents, visitors and businesses of York.
In managing Infrastructure and the regulatory environment seek to use innovative approaches to public/private partnering in order to accelerate improvements in public and built environment.
In order to maximise the benefits of delivery of these objectives where possible maintain or seek additional Government infrastructure investment to give opportunities for Members to consider additional Council investment in infrastructure or changing regulatory regimes and to do so in the context of the Councils Carbon reduction objectives.
As the corporate Emergency Planning and Business Continuity lead, to check that plans and structures are in place across CYC directorates, in case of potential emergency scenarios, so that essential services can continue to operate.
The specific areas of responsibility include the following:
· Planning
· Transport
· Highways
· Environment
· Public Protection
· Community Safety
· Emergency planning
2 DIMENSIONS
Revenue income £22,304,000 (+ proportion of 74,409k) + £4,752,000
Revenue expenditure £41,223,000 (+ proportion of 74,856k) + £5,796,000
5 yr Capital expenditure £279,381,000 (+ proportion of 199,322k) + £79,000
Direct reports 8
Indirect reports 400 plus
3 Principal Accountabilities
a. Develop and maintain a corporate performance management regime ensuring the monitoring and reporting of performance, early identification of potential issues in order to take decisive and effective corrective action across all areas of delivery.
b. Develop strategic plans to set direction and key organisational objectives in respect of the City’s infrastructure and regulatory regimes.
c. Develop Infrastructure and regulatory strategies that seek to deliver a public environment conducive to reducing anti-social behaviour and enhancing the lived experience and opportunities of residents, visitors and businesses of York including carbon reduction objectives for the City.
d. Identify and work with key stakeholders to align priorities and resources to deliver improved partnership working and services that achieve better outcomes for York’s citizens. In particular partner working will include Yorwaste, Make it York the Councils arm’s length companies. The Business improvement district and commercial and employment representative bodies.
e. Responsible for the effective an efficient operation of the Councils Planning Functions, so that the Chief Planning Officer can meet the Council statutory duties as a Planning Authority.
f. Responsible for the safe operation of the Councils Highway and Transport networks, so that the Council can meet its statutory duties as a Highways Authority.
g. Responsible for the safe operation of the Councils Waste and Public Realm, so that the Council can meet its statutory duties for public realm, as a Waste Collection and Waste Disposal Authority and Fleet operator.
h. Responsible for the effective an efficient operation of the Councils Public protection functions, so that the Council can meet its statutory duties in respect of Trading Standards, Environmental Health, Licencing and community safety.
i. Responsible for developing infrastructure and public realm including acquisition, construction and maintenance, and strategically lead on the council’s enabling role through infrastructure provision.
j. Responsible for the effective an efficient operation of the regional Trading Standards investigation team.
k. Responsible for openness and transparency in the development and delivery of services and projects including extensive and genuine engagement with the residents and stakeholder proportionate to the scale of the matter at hand.
l. Emergency Planning and Business Continuity, the postholder leads the team responsible for checking and coordinating plans from across the council, to ensure that all areas are covered and up to date in the case of emergency events. These can include local factors such as flooding, or national issues such as terrorism activities.
m. Support and deputise for the Corporate Director in the corporate and strategic management of the Directorate. Lead, plan and deliver the Directorate’s corporate priorities including existing and new legal responsibilities and functions conferred upon the council.
n. Facilitate corporate working across services, encouraging innovation and creativity to help build integrated service delivery and improvements and ensure a corporate response to the development of services.
o. Represent the organisation at high levels with stakeholders across the Yorkshire Region and nationally, where applicable.
p. Identify and work with key stakeholders to align priorities and resources to deliver improved partnership working and services that achieve better outcomes for York’s citizens.
4 JOB CONTEXT
The role is part of the Corporate Directorate Management team and the postholder contributes to the strategic and operational management of the Council to ensure achievement of both directorate and corporate aims and objectives.
The postholder has to work closely with politicians of all parties, and undertake extensive public engagement to develop the strategic and delivery response to the service challenges, and public expectations within the legislative and statutory frameworks.
The role requires an extensive knowledge of the statutory environments within which the service operates and to be able to ensure the commissioning of the appropriate specialist legal, financial and technical advice to ensure that service delivery and regulatory compliance are maintained across the functions the role is responsible for.
The postholder must develop complex multi-faceted commercial and property based projects, and thereby maintain and manage relationships with senior representatives of partners, stakeholders, contractors and a wide variety of government departments to be effective in the role.
Operationally the post holder is responsible for the Councils role as Highways Authority, Waste Collection and Disposal Authority, Public realm including parks and open spaces. This involves extensive statutory obligations including the Operator’s licence for the Councils fleet, Council objectives and includes the safe provision of public infrastructure and maintenance regimes for the delivery of public spaces. These obligations therefore require the post holder to operate a comprehensive and effective performance management culture to ensure these duties are fulfilled.
The post holder has responsibility for the majority of the regulatory function in respect of commercial and private activity within the City and the reduction of anti-social behaviour and must therefore ensure that the Councils fulfils its duties as regulator in such a manner that seeks to achieve the objectives of legislation rather than in a per functionary manner that whilst compliant fails to deliver the outcomes for the public.
This role is part of the emergency planning rota and the postholder is on call for out of hours emergencies.
This role is an Information Asset Owner and must carry out the responsibilities of an Owner as required and set out in the council’s ‘Information Governance/Data Protection Roles and Responsibilities Rules’.
The postholder deputises for Corporate Director as required.
5 IMPACT & INFLUENCE
The postholder has a major involvement with and impact on city managing some of the Councils most visible services, regional and national issues.
They must be able to communicate effectively with all groups, at political, business and community levels. The post holder is tasked with seeking to deliver an environment conducive to reducing anti-social behaviour and enhancing the lived experience and opportunities of residents, visitors and businesses of York including carbon reduction objectives for the City.
This role therefore has a fundamental role in influencing the lived experience of every York resident and the 7 million plus visitors and workers that come to the City each year. This influence and the scale and nature of infrastructure and regulations deployed to achieve the strategic outcomes thereby has a significant influence on the whole York economy and the appetite for commercial and Government investment in the City. This influence extending through all aspects of the City’s day to day activities and long term goals.
Impact is both long and short term; strategies are in the main between 3 to 5 years, although the Local Transport Plan has in excess of a 10 year coverage. This contrasts with the impact of the significant operational activity in Public Realm, Waste and Highways which have immediate impact for residents and the City’s Highway network.
The postholder is influential in delivering the right infrastructure mix for the city and using information provided from sources such as the Local Plan, Local Transport plan and Highways Asset Management Plan.
They must make decisions as what infrastructure development the council can undertake, identify opportunities to provide further infrastructure and on whether existing infrastructure is still fit for purpose or can be re-purposed or redeveloped; maximising and making best use of existing infrastructure.
They are influential in generating additional infrastructure provision with the external private developers by maximising the planning gain. They also need to build influence with transport providers such as Network Rail, Bus operators and new technology providers to mobilise them to take on service expansion opportunities and increase the infrastructure and services available to the City.
The role is influential in maintaining standards of behaviours in the public realm and in businesses through licensing and inspection and enforcement regimes. This is fundamental in developing good quality, safe environment for the residents, businesses and visitors to York.
The postholder has two corporate roles across the council as a whole.
· Fleet and Operators Licence
o Responsible for ensuring the council’s fleet of vehicles is appropriate to deliver the services
o Ensuring that all the council complies with the requirements of the DVSA for a commercial fleet
· Emergency Planning and Business Continuity
o The postholder is responsible for ensuring that the Council is prepared for emergency situations and has plans in place e.g. rest centres, and has business continuity plans in place for a range of scenarios e.g. flooding and terrorism.
6 ORGANISATION
7 HARDEST MOST DIFFICULT PART OF JOB
To oversee a coherent strategic approach across infrastructure and regulation and facilitate the mobilisation of Private sector partners, Government, stakeholders and gain public support.
The political will and ambitions affects direction, and the focus can change depending on the manifesto of leading parties. e.g. balancing investment in new infrastructure vs maintenance vs social benefits, translating the administration’s ambitions into reality is a key challenge for this role.
Seeking and securing funding and partners for major projects, such as recently: £155m for the enabling infrastructure to deliver York Central; £80m for the Outer ring road; £36m for regeneration of front of station.
To be able to make quick decisions on areas not previously exposed to – learn the subject, absorb, use and implement as necessary. (e.g. Electrification of fleet)
Working with Members, and getting decisions made for proposals, requires resilience, flexibility and a range of strategic and technical skills.
The role is strongly rooted in effective Partnership working which requires sophisticated stakeholder management skills and strong personal credibility.
Dealing with stakeholders / public engagement and their expectations also requires excellent strategic and communication skills.
8 Knowledge Skills & Experience
· Considerable success in delivering complex multi-disciplinary change programmes and large complex capital schemes
· Experience of managing large and diverse operational and infrastructure portfolios
· Strong commercial skills with significant experience in complex contract negotiation and management
· Experience of leading complex partnership development, and a strong track record of partnership working to deliver ambitious change agendas
· Understanding of a range of complex commercial, property and planning legal issues
· A broad understanding of local government legislation with regard to finance, asset management and planning
· Experience of structuring engagement and consultation plans for public engagement programmes
· Significant experience of identifying and mitigating corporate and project risks
· Significant experience of leading large scale public procurement exercises
· Significant experience of financial modelling and business case development
· Educated to degree level preferably in a relevant discipline
· Project Management Qualification (Prince 2 or equivalent experience)
Substantial experience at senior management level, working in a political, complex, multi-functional organisation which should include:
· Experience of developing and delivering strategies to meet organisation objectives and achieve planned results
· Experience of strategic and operational resource management, with strong analytical skills and an aptitude for developing clear vision and direction to overcome complex problems
· Ability to manage large and complex public sector budgets with an emphasis on value for money and efficiencies.
· A detailed knowledge and understanding of leading edge service delivery and the ability to translate this into service transformation.
· Ability to provide visible and supportive transformational leadership, empowering, enabling, motivating and developing the workforce to achieve significant, sustainable service improvements and outstanding results.
· Ability to operate effectively within the democratic processes, with the political acumen and skills to develop productive working relationships with Council Members.
· Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills to relate effectively to employees, Council Members, the general public and other stakeholders to engender respect, trust and confidence.