Specialist4

Functional Areas

People, Place &

Prosperity

Customer

Commercial, Investment and Change

Localities

Strategy

Performance and

Governance

Communicationsand Engagement

• We plan to reduce to 6 functional areas by combining Commercial Investment and Major Programmes into a new area called Commercial, Investment and Change.

• Funding has been set aside for the delivery of statutory functions such as S151, Strategic HR, and Monitoring Officer. Chief Planning Officer function has now been added to this.

Specialist

The role of a Specialist is to provide advice and technical guidance in a particular field of expertise.

You will receive work requests from a variety of sources and a high volume will come via Case Managers from across the functional areas. You will apply your specific expertise to the relevant parts of a process where required and apply best practice in order to resolve technical issues. You will be qualified or experienced in your specialism and keep up-to-date with changes in legislation in order to drive best practice across all programmes, projects, activities and processes. Your work may be routine and proactive on project based work, but you will also need to be reactive in order to input your specialist and professional expertise in the resolution of complex cases.

Lead Specialists will also, when required, co-ordinate the allocation of tasks to the Specialists. They will have expertise in a key area and have overall accountability for their particular specialism. Where necessary, they will provide advice and guidance on difficult and very complex issues They will also advise on strategic issues and provide technical mentoring and support to other Specialists.

Job Description & Person Specification

JOB TITLE: Specialist REPORTING TO: Appropriate Operational Manager, Specialist or Headship LOCATION: Flexible and Variable GRADE: H Key tasks

• Provide specialist, professional expertise • Provide advice and technical guidance • Provide judgement and decision • Contribute expertise to complex cases • Keep up to date with legislation • Liaison with external agencies and partners, including courts, tribunals and other formal bodies • Support, guide, advise other teams in area of expertise • Reports to committees • Contribute to enabling and prevention of demand • Specify and manage projects, contracts and supplier relationships • Accountable for ensuring adherence to Council policy / strategy • Ensure and develop case management knowledge • Develop and manage policy and strategy, applying discretion • Work closely with lead specialist & people managers • Technical mentoring and support to other specialists • Manage complex cases or issues (medium impact politically, financially, risk etc) • Provide technical leadership on strategic projects and programmes

Knowledge Essential Competent in the use of Microsoft Office. Principles of good customer service. Values and promotes equality and diversity. Understand the principles of data protection. A demonstrable track record and consistent achievement at professional level within an organisation of

comparable scope and complexity. Able to demonstrate understanding, experience and knowledge of policy and activities within your area of

expertise. Knowledge and understanding of Health and Safety legislation and requirements. Desirable Experience with working with elected members, or in a political environment.

Skills & Abilities Essential Commitment to providing excellent customer service. Flexibility and ability to multi-task. High level of accuracy and attention to detail. Ability to work under pressure. Problem solving & decision making. Team player. Persuasive and encouraging – adopting a coaching style to enable customers. Ability to lead, motivate, enthuse, inform and develop others to improve capability levels within the team. Able to demonstrate a strategic thinking capacity and be pro-active in developing and implementing

continuous improvements across the service. Numerate and analytical with the ability to interpret, analyse and extract relevant information from

complex reports and translate these so that they are capable of being understood by a wide range of people.

Excellent interpersonal and communication skills demonstrating the ability to consult, influence and negotiate with a wide range of people (e.g. public and partners) both inside and outside of the Council.

Qualifications Essential Educated to A level standard or equivalent experience. Relevant professional qualification or experience. Membership of a professional body, where such a relevant body exists Evidence of continuing development of professional skills, e.g. through training, qualification and/or

experience. Desirable Qualified to degree level or equivalent. General Requirements

To undertake other duties as reasonable required. Actively demonstrates the behaviours as detailed in the Council’s Behaviour Framework and confident to challenge others when required. Flexible and willing to undertake a range of tasks for the effective running of the function, willing to work the hours required for the successful completion of tasks and attend evening meetings as required. This job description sets out the duties of the post at the time it was drawn up. Such details may vary from time to time without changing the general character of the duties or the level of responsibility involved. SIGNED: DATE:

COMMERCIAL, INVESTMENT & CHANGE

Specialist – Commercial Investment at Grade K x2

Purpose

The purpose of the Commercial, Investment and Change function is to lead the delivery –

directly or through facilitation and enabling - of major place schemes and programmes across

the area, creating conditions for growth, prosperity and well-being. Schemes and

programmes currently under consideration include for example: housing schemes,

regeneration projects, major infrastructure projects and cross-cutting place programmes such

as Taunton Garden Town and place programmes in our rural and coastal communities.

The function will also identify and realise opportunities for the Council to invest directly, stimulating growth and regeneration and generating a commercial return to the Council, with an initial focus on asset and property activities. The function will lead programmes of significant business change across the organisation.

Specialists – Commercial Investment

Two senior Specialist roles will be qualified property experts with commercial experience,

leading asset strategy, key transactions, developing business cases and project delivery. The

work of these posts will divide broadly across Council owned assets and new (non-Council

owned) investments. Council assets will divide into HRA and General Fund. These posts will

have strong links with Specialists and Case Managers.

COMMUNICATIONS & ENGAGEMENT

Specialist – Communication & Engagement at Grade H x2

Specialist – Communication & Engagement (Design & Digital) at Grade F x2

Purpose

This team is fundamental to the success of our organisation and how our customers, partners

and stakeholders perceive us. These key roles will ensure that we are keeping both internal

and external customers, including our tenants, informed about Council priorities, services and

campaigns. They will lead the engagement of our customers, providing a marketing function

to the Council including customer data/insight and trends and promotion of commercial and

income generating services, and place-based marketing to support inward investment and

economic ambitions.

This team will also be the authority on all our websites, our intranet and social media. They

will drive our vision, presence and strategy as well as gate keep content and design. They will

be supported by technical colleagues on IT work and all areas of the organisation on the

content.

Specialists – Communications & Engagement (Grade H)

There will be two Specialists to deliver the communication activity outlined in the team

description above. The scope of work these strategic roles will cover includes internal

communications, external communications (including tenant engagement), media

relationships and management, and communication activity across all channels. These

Specialist roles will bring expertise to ensure we develop strong communications delivery

plans (and content) and campaigns in support of our Communications & Engagement

Strategy.

Working closely with colleagues across the One Team in driving best practice, they will

develop plans to allow us to share information, develop strong content for pro-active

campaign activity, and help ensure we can deliver key messages to the right audience at the

right time – in order to pro-actively manage the our reputation. Developing strong

relationships with media contacts, with partners, and colleagues across the organisation will

be key to success.

Specialists – Communications & Engagement (Design & Digital) (Grade F)

There will be two design Specialists to deliver the design activity to support communications

work. The wide scope includes all work to support internal communications, external

communications (including tenant engagement), and includes communication activity across

all channels.

These Specialist roles bring design expertise (digital and other) to ensure we support the

ambitions of the communications delivery plans and campaigns.

Working to support colleagues in the Communications & Engagement Team, they will have

the organisational overview and management of design work to support all communications

and marketing activity. Developing our digital design activity will be a priority, along with

ensuring design work is aligned to priority areas and in support of the agreed key messages.

PERFORMANCE & GOVERNANCE

Specialist – Strategic Procurement Grade K x1

Specialist – Governance & Democratic Grade H x2

Specialist – Business Design Grade H x1

Specialist – Business Intelligence x4-6 (x2 at Grade H & x2 at Grade F)

Specialist – PMO Authority Support Grade H x1

Specialist – Clienting Grade H x1

Purpose

This team provides important and underpinning activities across Performance & Risk

Management, Governance & Elections, Information & Data Management and Strategic

support on Procurement, and our People Management function. Developing the strength of

this area will bring benefit to all we do and allow the Strategic Board to operate effectively –

based on strong governance principles, on robust data and information and with strong

democratic arrangements in place.

The Governance function provides resource to:-

Deliver all support to our Elected Members and the democratic process, including meeting support.

Support our Members, allowing them to fulfil their roles as elected representatives for our community.

Drive our governance framework – including the authority on programme and project priorities.

Elections.

Support to Leader, Strategic Board, and civic arrangements and functions.

The Business Intelligence and Performance function provides resource to:-

Drive our performance management framework – including the client management of key contracts and partnerships.

Control ongoing business design integrity and develop our business intelligence ambitions and support service improvement.

Specialist – Strategic Procurement

This role will drive the development of our new procurement framework (including

governance of procurement). The role will lead on the developing of category management

activity across the Council, will support key procurement activity and will support the

organisation in the future review of service activity – helping ensure we achieve the right

outcomes for our Council and community.

This is a strategically important role that will truly help shape the future of our organisation.

This role will drive best practice across all procurement activity and own the ambition to get

as much “self-serve” procurement activity as possible.

Specialist – Governance & Democratic

There will be two Specialists, working together to deliver expertise to the Council on

governance, democratic support and elections. These high profile roles will lead on the

delivery of support to our Elected Members, ensuring they have advice on governance,

standards, and interests as appropriate. (The day to day running of democratic meetings will

sit in the Customer function). These roles will ensure we have systems in place to fully carry

out our elections function, and will support the development and implementation of new

governance arrangements for our One Team. They will lead on the planning and support for

the Strategic Board.

Specialist – Business Design

There will be one Specialist, delivering “design authority” expertise to the Council. This role

will advise on ongoing system and process change decisions – preserving the integrity of the

organisational design and architecture. This is a new function for our Council, recognising the

importance of central control on changes to organisational systems and processes.

This role will work closely with the business change programme and the business intelligence

team to ensure the design principles embedded in this transformational change stay alive and

are pro-actively driven in all we do.

Specialist - Business Intelligence

This team will be responsible for managing data sets across a range of areas. The team will

ensure we have “safe” data and “one version of the truth” to support our activities. The team

will have pro-active work (managing and enhancing our data sets) and re-active work

(supporting the organisation in the provision of data and the analysis of data).

The team will be specifically responsible for our property records and GIS function – ensuring

the organisation can have a clear view of spatial and non-spatial information that is accurate,

up to date and can underpin our service delivery and strategy development.

Specialist – PMO Authority Support

This role will lead on programme governance and work closely with the Governance Manager.

This role will lead on the development, implementation and management of the framework

and standards for both programme and project management across the organisation. This

role will be the “centre of excellence” for best practice and will drive improvement in our

programme and project management approach. The role will collate and interpret data and

information on the programmes and develop reporting scorecards.

Delivering support to the Governance Manager on a wide range of high profile and

strategically important work – including the creation of key programme documentation and

plans, the planning of related engagement and communication and governance reporting

Specialist – Clienting

We have a range of arrangements in place via contracts and partnerships to provide services

on behalf of the Council. In these circumstances we provide a clienting function for some of

these services and resource has been set aside to implement the most appropriate clienting

arrangement for these functions. The following partnerships/contracts are included in this

arrangement:-

Building Control Partnership

Leisure Contract

Waste Partnership

Shape Legal Partnership

Parking Enforcement and Cash Collection contracts

Civil Contingencies

Street Cleaning

CUSTOMER

Lead Specialists Grade K x5

- People

- Place

- Prosperity

- Tech Business Partner

- Finance Business Partner

Purpose The purpose of the Specialists Team is to pro-actively and re-actively input specialist and

professional expertise into programmes, projects, activities and processes across the One

Team to deliver against our priority Themes of People, Place and Prosperity. They will become

involved in more complex projects and cases and in contributing to the strategic direction of

the Council and One Team.

Specialists will apply their specific expertise only to the relevant part of a process where it is

required, in particular for higher impact or complex or contentious cases or those that involve

a relevant statutory requirement. The Specialist Services will receive work requests from a

variety of sources/routes but a high volume will come via Case Management. Much of this

workflow can be systemised to allocate to it to the right Specialist in terms of subject matter

and the right Specialist in terms of experience, competence and seniority. However, in cases

where a professional judgement needs to be applied to decide who to allocate the task to

either a Specialists, an Operational Manager and /or relevant Lead Specialist will perform this

work allocation role.

Specialists will also work proactively on project-based work. These projects will relate to our

priority Themes of People, Place and Prosperity. This work will be guided and aligned to the

One Team’s strategic plans to ensure all activity is targeted to the delivery of our ambitions

and vision.

Lead Specialist

These roles provide functional leadership to the Specialists function and will be deployed

across our priority Themes or as Business Partners. They will be key to the delivery of our

People, Place and Prosperity ambitions and organisational Vision.

Lead Specialists will be the One Team specialist lead in their Theme and will have some

expertise in a key area of that Theme. They will fulfil some of the following key activities as

set out below:-

Providing professional advice and guidance to all colleagues across the organisation and customers, as required, on difficult and complex issues that form part of their area of expertise. They will advise on strategic issues for both senior managers and Members.

Collaborating with businesses, internal departments, senior management, key strategic partners and other organisations as required.

Reviewing and challenging the effective development of their Theme to ensure service and operational cross overs and synergies are identified and explored to ensure our activities are co-ordinated to the benefit of our customers and stakeholders and priority outcomes.

As well as specialist knowledge Specialists will also have a good understanding of other aspects of their Theme so they can advise the One Team and influence the development and delivery of our priority Themes and ongoing improvement of functional activities to the benefit of our customers.

Lead Specialist – People

This role will be responsible for the specialist services that impact on our Theme of People

as set out below:-

Our relentless ambition to put all of our customers first

Our focus on our vulnerable communities, supporting their needs and raising their

aspirations and life chances

Our focus on the One Team’s organisation and individual needs and aspirations

Our People Business Manager will take the lead on developing our internal People Strategy

and ambition. They will be supported by other Specialists providing advice on issues such as

HR.

For illustration purposes only, the following Specialist activities could align to this Lead

Specialist role - housing, benefits, revenues, environmental health, planning, HR.

Lead Specialist – Place

This role will be responsible for the specialist services that impact on our Theme of Place as

set out below:-

Our focus on making better use of our development opportunities, our natural capital

and our ability to invest in infrastructure, assets and public realm to build thriving

places.

Our focus on maintaining a clean and welcoming environment for our customers to

enjoy.

For illustration purposes only, the following Specialist activities could align to this Lead

Specialist role - planning, environmental health, asset management

Lead Specialist – Prosperity

This role will be responsible for the specialist services that impact on our Theme of

Prosperity as set out below:-

Our focus on building thriving communities where prosperity is enjoyed by all.

Our focus on supporting our existing business and on inward investment and job

creation.

Our focus on commercialism building a thriving One Team and New Council delivering

value for money and an ability to resource the functions and activities that our

customers value.

For illustration purposes only, the following Specialist activities could align to this Lead

Specialist role - community development, asset management, inward investment, business

innovation and skills development.

Lead Specialist –Technology Business Partner

This role will provide key advice to the One Team on its current and future use of technology

to support efficiency, innovation and continuous improvement of service to our customers.

This will involve our current technology provision, alongside ongoing interpretation of the

organisation’s requirements and future aspirations, also scanning the external environment

and sector for solutions and advancements we may choose to pursue. The culmination of

this work will be to challenge the status quo and present options and alternatives for how

the organisation can continually improve its use of technology, and look for innovation

across the organisation and translate these into proposals for consideration and that can be

translated into work packages for the ICT function to deliver.

Lead Specialist - Finance Business Partner

The senior role will provide strategic financial advice to the Senior Leadership Team and

Strategic Board. The role will liaise with the appointed Section 151 officer and any other

strategic financial advice commissioned by the One Team. The role may also be required to

fulfil a deputy Section 151 officer role.

This role will provide technical input and challenge into “business as usual” financial

processes such as budget setting, along with other areas of change such as investments,

projects and policy development such as treasury management. This role will be proactive

in reviewing relevant material and providing direction and advice to ensure work is of

suitable quality, delivering the desired outcomes and maximising commercial opportunities.

This role will be pivotal in developing commercial business cases across the One Team.

STRATEGY

Specialist (People, Place, Prosperity) x6-8

At Grade K x3

At Grade H x3-5

Purpose

This team is fundamental to our future and will play a huge role in developing our vision and

ambition into strategies and plans for the One Team and partners to deliver.

The team’s purpose is to set the strategic plans and priorities, working collaboratively with

partners and all parts of the Council to ensure activity is focused on agreed common goals as

specified by the Strategic Board and set out in our Strategic plans for People, Place and

Prosperity.

The accountability for the entire strategic planning cycle sits within the Strategy function.

Specialist – Strategy

A team of experts who will drive the delivery of the organisation’s strategic planning cycle.

This team will, under the leadership of the Head of Strategy, deliver the Place Plan – that

articulates our People, Place and Prosperity ambitions. The team will also deliver some

supporting strategies and will commission others in from Specialists across the organisation.

The team will be responsible for ensuring there is ongoing alignment across the organisation’s

strategies and will proactively drive this outcome across all work. The team will work

collaboratively with others inside and external to the organisation.

The team will work closely with the Business Intelligence function to ensure our strategies are

based on timely and relevant data sets and our forecasts can be evidenced.

The team will have a forward focus and be proactive in seeking intelligence in changes to

policy from government and key partners that will impact on and inform our Place Plan and

ambitions.

Specialist Team Purpose The purpose of the Specialists Team is to pro-actively and reactively input specialist and professional expertise into programmes, projects, activities and processes across the One Team to deliver against our priority Themes of People, Place and Prosperity. They will get involved in more complex projects and cases and in contributing to the strategic direction of the Council and One Team. Specialists will apply their specific expertise only to the relevant part of a process where it is required, in particular for higher impact or complex or contentious cases or those that involve a relevant statutory requirement. The Specialist Services will receive work requests from a variety of sources/routes but a high volume will come via Case Management, much of this workflow can be systemised to allocate to it to the right Specialist in terms of subject matter and the right Specialist in terms of experience, competence and seniority. However, in cases where a professional judgement needs to be applied to decide who to allocate the task to the Specialists, an Operational Manager and /or relevant Lead Specialist will perform this work allocation role. Specialists Team – (Grades K, H, and F noting that posts in certain specialist areas may require Market Factors) The Specialists team will be comprised of a wide range of Specialists to ensure we have effective coverage of the technical areas required for the effective delivery of the One Teams’ ambitions and vision. We are envisaging a mix of Specialists in the following broad areas:

• Billing, collection and debt recovery • ICT Infrastructure, Applications and Digital • Environmental Health (including private sector housing enforcement) • Licensing • Housing (including Landlord Responsibilities, Lettings & Homefinder,

Supported Housing) • Benefits • Homelessness • Human Resources • Corporate Health and Safety and Housing Landlord Compliance • Asset Management including hard and soft Facilities Management,

Leasehold and Right to Buy • Stock Condition and Compliance Surveying along with input into

complex repairs and contract works • Development Management of direct delivery of housing and

commercial schemes. • Enabling development projects, infrastructure and housing • Finance – to address General Fund and Housing Revenue Account

budgeting, projects and policy.

• Planning including Development Management, Urban Design, Major Planning Application Advice, Planning Policy, Landscape, Biodiversity, Conservation and Heritage, Trees and Horticulture