I’ve been at Camden for just over a year and I’m loving every minute of it. Its creative energy, vision and its drive to work with everyone that cares about the borough to help people live together. That’s why I feel very privileged to be recruiting two Portfolio Leads (£49–60K) and three Principal Officers (£44–51K) to join my team to help us mobilise people’s energies around common causes and help them drive change across the borough.
Camden has a proud, rebellious spirit that throughout its history has seen communities come together to tackle problems, and bring about real social change. As a council, we’re proud to play our role in mobilising the energies of everyone that cares about the borough to help people live well together.
Camden has a strong reputation in thinking differently and leading new ways of working, where our people, the council and others work together differently to develop new solutions, from Citizens Assemblies, Public Collaboration Lab or the Knowledge Quarter. We work on issues that really matter, from our Youth Safety Taskforce, our pioneering work to tackle the Climate Emergency and Community Investment Programme or our New Municipalism investment. We have neighbourhoods with strong identities at the heart of London, such as Camden Town, Covent Garden or St Pancras, as well as being home to global innovators, such as Google, UCL or the Crick Institute.
We’re looking for people who are passionate & driven to take a leading role in improving strategy and delivering change in transforming how we support our communities. We can offer the roles on a fixed term basis for a year to 18 months and we also offer secondments so we can learn from the best and most creative organisations.
You’ll join us at a critical time as we deliver Camden 2025.
What’s the team?
As Strategy & Change, we support people through change all the time, starting from understanding what matters to help people thrive & cope with change:
- Start with what matters to people in their everyday lives to develop outcomes for the place
- Use our understanding of people’s needs to align outcomes to your resources
- Move from building services to building movements
- Challenge ourselves and others to be brave & radical
- Empower staff to work with residents to solve problems together
We don’t just want to help people adapt to change but mobilise people around common causes to influencing innovation — where we try and:
- Pioneer new ways of delivering outcomes that influence the wider agenda
- Challenge ourselves and others to constantly put our communities first
- Mobilise the skills & energies of our communities & institutions to work together to tackle challenges
- Work out in the open to develop creative ways to tackle the issues
- Partner with others to develop networks that shape the future of our places
In the year that I’ve been at Camden, I’ve tried to lead teams in ways which start with relationships and create the spaces for others to support that change, as well as open up opportunities to others to get stuck in and bring their skills to the table. We recognise that to anticipate and influence radical change, we need to rethink what we do — what we know about the world, how we work or how we shape the place around us. Or put it simply, how we can be more pirate. We also need to think about defining the boundaries of our work, to understand what we’re best placed at doing and who else we should collaborate with.
Who are we looking for?
We’re looking for…you! You enjoy mobilising people to tackle complex challenges and are confident in navigating ambiguous situations. You enjoy being at the heart of influencing council decision making and understanding how to translate strategic priorities into impact on the ground. You’re a self-starter, ready to take responsibility for finding new ways to get things done.
You’ll be able to confidently plan and manage a range of projects with high levels of complexity, helping seed, accelerate and embed change whilst ensuring the organisation is brought along the journey. Your work will be diverse but you will focus on designing and delivering major programmes. Most importantly, you are passionate about how we can work together with our communities to find the best solutions to tackle complex challenges.
You will strengthen our relationships and being able to influence decision makers across the council, as well as residents to implement innovative policies and strategies. You will be able to make sense of emerging trends and help people navigate complex change. You’ll take an evidence-based approach, proactively carrying out research & analysis to measure outcomes and inform decision making.
With the implementation of Our Camden 2025 Plan underway, this role is crucial in enhancing the Council’s services and priorities across a variety of disciplines and work streams.
You’re a strategic thinker with experience of being able to develop solutions to complex challenges and coordinate their delivery into solutions that have significant impact.
You take a future focussed approach to regularly delivering service redesigns and reviews, whilst being able to adapt to different environments and teams across the Council.
You have excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to analyse data and confidently articulate clear & compelling solutions across diverse audiences.
Alongside this, you have experience in working in one or more of these areas:
- Galvanising and helping people navigate change
- Strategic development, implementation and monitoring
- Change management, engagement & service redesign
- Data, research, analysis & performance management
- Programme, project and risk management
Above all, we’re looking for people who are passionate and have shown they can mobilise people and deliver significant change that improves outcomes for people, whatever sector you come from.
Apply now on our website! Deadline to apply 5th January!
If you’d like to find out more about the role, get in touch with me here or at noel.hatch@camden.gov.uk
