Summary

We are the public body that looks after England’s historic environment. We champion historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them.

Historic England have a fantastic opportunity for you to become our Head of Strategic Planning.

You will lead a portfolio of three areas: Strategy, Planning and Performance. You will mobilise Historic England behind clear priorities and help ensure the organisation remains future focused by leading on strategy and by driving corporate planning. You will guide the organisation in taking well-judged risks in pursuit of its objectives.

You will direct robust performance monitoring. You will champion Historic England’s ambition to become a more data enabled organisation, develop its strategic insight, forecasting and data visualisation capabilities, and use this to shape the organisation’s decisions, narrative and influence stakeholders.

You will collaborate closely with colleagues across Historic England including the Executive Team, Chief Executive and Commissioners and strengthen strategic relationships with critical external stakeholders including the DCMS and English Heritage Trust.

You will work strategically and creatively across Historic England, taking into account the organisation’s wider operating context, external organisations priorities and interests, risks and opportunities.

The location of this role is National where we offer hybrid working, you will be based in one of our following offices and from home - Newcastle, York, Manchester, Birmingham, Swindon, Bristol, Portsmouth and Cambridge. 

This is a 12 month fixed term contract.

Salary

National salary range: £50,736 - £54,000 pro-rata

Greater London + salary range: £52,298 - £56,000 pro-rata

Inner London salary range: £55,494 - £59,000 pro-rata

What you will be doing

You will Lead on Historic England’s corporate strategy, providing leadership and direction. Accountable for:

Developing the organisation’s overarching strategy, in support of the Chief Executive and Executive Team, and aligning individual strategies with it, ensuring a coherent organisational strategic landscape that staff can understand and navigate.

Working collaboratively with colleagues, including the Executive team, to initiate and drive new strategies development by providing expert facilitation, project management support and strategic thinking coaching.

Historic England’s strategies and corporate plan to its sponsoring body’s evolving priorities and influencing the DCMS through the use and promotion of Historic England’s strategy.

Direct Business Planning, guiding its production by engaging with Historic England’s senior leaders and its wide range of stakeholders to shape its content. Ensure the corporate plan articulates Historic England’s ambition and priorities, provides tangible value, and remains lean and relevant.

Drive the creation of a culture that is data enabled and accountable. Specifically accountable for:

Directing a rigorous but proportional regime of impact and progress reporting, surfacing timely and usable performance insights. Ensure KPI metrics are robust and supported by well selected case studies and a clear and fair narrative to bring the organisation’s impact to life.

Ensuring Historic England’s contribution to the DCMS’ objectives is well evidenced and compellingly communicated.

Overseeing the dynamic Key Performance Indicator dashboard and support colleagues in actively using insights gained to challenge and improve performance.

You will Lead Historic England’s risk management framework development and use. Working closely with the Executive Team influence the strategic direction of the organisation by defining the organisation’s evolving risk appetite and hold it to account against it. Oversee the organisation’s risk landscape, working closely with colleagues to ensure the right risks are escalated, owned, and reviewed at the corporate level.

You will provide ongoing stewardship of the relationship with English Heritage Trust, in support of the Chief Executive, Director of Corporate Services, and General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Act as a focal point for the relationship, proactively seeking opportunities to strengthen effective partnership working.

You will Manage a multi-disciplinary team, leading and motivating a hybrid workforce.   

You will develop and maintain external relationships with other Arm’s Length Bodies, encourage knowledge sharing and represent Historic England in government working groups and forums as the role requires.  

As a member of the Business Improvement Leadership Team and Corporate Leadership team, demonstrate effective leadership on cross-cutting priority issues. Undertake any other reasonable duties commensurate with the grade and competencies required of the post requested by line management.

Who we are looking for

• Influencing / Negotiating

• Collaboration

• Strategic thinking / strategy development

• Risk management

• Performance management / numeric / analytical skills

We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having just won the Gold Award from MIND, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.

We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don’t prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.

We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.

Why work for Historic England

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive pension scheme starting at 26% contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

Historic England want all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at recruitmentTeam@Historicengland.org.uk if you have any recruitment queries. 

To ensure a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone the use of AI or automated tools is not permitted.

Interview dates: 9th and 11th April 2024.

Please follow the link for a full copy of the Job Description –

https://historicengland.org.uk/media/b41prpum/head-of-strategic-planning.odt