Future Technology Services Project Manager

Government Skills, formally Government Skills and Curriculum unit, was created in 2020 to improve the coherence and quality of learning and development in government through better training, knowledge and networks. The vision is to provide support for over 550,000 Civil Servants across Government to develop the skills, knowledge and networks they need.

The aim was to accelerate the development of the skills, knowledge and networks of all civil servants, reaching across the wider public sector and delivering better public services for citizens across the country.

As we move into a new era under a new Government the aim is to reduce the cost of learning and improve the quality of outputs by moving to a new operating model. This is an exciting time of growth for Government Skills with new positions being created to support the future operating model.

This will require significant programme and project management, and co-ordination to enable effective planning and design work at both Portfolio Level and individual Project Workstream levels.

Over the next three years, this transformational programme will see less reliance on external providers to deliver training services for the Civil Service and an increase in internal delivery using expertise within the Civil Service.

The Learning Frameworks and Services Team is responsible for four enabling workstreams under the National School of Government and Public Services Portfolio. Between them, these workstreams cover the current, transitional and future infrastructure to support centralised training for 550,000 Civil Servants.

We are looking for an exceptional Project Manager to ensure the safe, coordinated and robustly assured project that sees the implementation of the commercial and digital infrastructure that will underpin the operational delivery of the National School of Government and Public Services.

The successful candidate will utilise project management methodologies in a flexible way, facilitating effective delivery of a number of sub-workstreams that tracks and manages dependencies and risks.

• Project planning - lead the development of comprehensive plans and timelines, encompassing immediate actions as well as medium to long-term strategies for safe delivery of the future infrastructure.
• Workstream engagement - enabling effective governance and workstream stakeholder engagement, for example by:
• Encouraging a culture of collaboration and innovation, enabling workstream teams to identify and act on interdependencies;
• Providing and drafting materials to support the engagement of wider Gov Skills governance and stakeholder forums (agendas, Ministerial submissions, Board papers, etc);
• Risks, issues and dependencies - facilitate the proactive identification, tracking and review of risks, issues, and dependencies within the future infrastructure project, including monthly reviews, ensuring that responses are integrated into action plans and effectively monitored.
• Delivery monitoring and internal reporting - track progress against targets and milestones, producing status reports for stakeholders to ensure transparency and accountability.
• Learning and continuous improvement - promote and facilitate the identification of lessons learned and incorporate them into forward plans.
• Meeting assurance needs of Government People Groups Project Management Office and Project Profession Authority including through monthly returns that pull together the totality of the projects progress across the workstreams.
• Lead of a small project team (1 x HEO, 1 x SEO) to ensure all project activities and artefacts are recorded, maintained, tracked and stored to a high standard that meet future audit needs.

Given the dynamic nature of our teams work, all roles are expected to adapt as priorities evolve. This position offers opportunities to demonstrate long-term strategic thinking while delivering tangible results.

Experience & Knowledge

• Experience of project and/or programme management with strong organisational skills, project or programme management office skills with a focus on delivering outcomes rather than process.
• Ability to operate effectively in complex and ambiguous environments, adapting quickly to the changing strategic context.
• A track-record of bringing structure and a strategic mindset to complex and sometimes rapidly changing programmes of work.

Skills

• Collaboration skills - strong capability forging and maintaining relationships across various stakeholders at varying levels of seniority.
• Engagement and facilitation skills - enabling others to come together to surface risks and issues, innovate and solve problems, and work towards clear action plans.
• Strong written communication skills, including the ability to distil complex information into succinct, easy to understand, forward plans and reports such as Ministerial submissions and Board packs or papers.
• Strong prioritisation and organisational skills when managing competing demands, working across multiple areas to meet deadlines, required standards and maintaining high quality under time constraints.

Desirable

• Experience supporting Business Case development including preparation, development, commissioning and updating
• Project Management Qualification(s): e.g. Prince2, Agile, Scrum, Project Fundamentals Qualification

Additional information:

Cabinet Office policy is that a minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. For some roles, due to their nature and the business need, this may be up to 100%. Requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.