Head of Programme Management Office (PMO)

Government Recruitment Service; York and North Yorkshire; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A government agency in York is seeking a Head of PMO to lead transformation initiatives within the GCF Capability. You will be responsible for managing a team of project professionals, ensuring governance, risk management, and performance monitoring. This role requires leadership skills, a strong analytical capability, and experience in change management. The successful candidate will play a key role in achieving strategic outcomes and managing stakeholder relationships within the government framework.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in a leadership role managing teams and projects.
• Demonstrated ability to manage change and transformation initiatives.
• Strong analytical skills for performance measurement and risk assessment.

Responsibilities

• Lead the transformational strategy of GCF Capability.
• Manage internal and external stakeholder relationships.
• Accountable for project governance and risk management.
• Oversee performance monitoring and reporting activities.

Skills

Leadership skills

Change management expertise

Stakeholder management

Risk management

Strategic thinking

Education

Relevant degree in management or related field

Tools

Project management software

Job description

One of the highest priorities for the Civil Service is improving commercial capability across Government, a priority being driven by the Government Commercial Function (GCF). Annual central government commercial spend on goods and services is c.£50bn and if you include the wider public sector this figure is almost £300bn - even the smallest improvements in capability can unlock massive value across the system. As part of the work of the GCF, Phase One (2015 – 2017) of the Commercial & Contract Management Capability Programme established the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO) that recruits, develops, and retains senior commercial talent, helping to drive commercial best practice and improve commercial capability across Government. By August 2024, over 90% of GCO professionals had been accredited in a specialist workforce of c1600 commercial experts deployed across departments.

The GCO has climbed six places and is now ranked 20th by ‘Inclusive Companies’ in their Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers List for FY23/24. The GCO focuses on ensuring we have suitably qualified commercial expertise to meet spending priorities, with a focus on talent management, market leading reward and performance management approaches (including benchmarking against other industries for pay, pension and recognition).

The award‑winning Commercial and Contracts Management Capability Team is a division within the Government Commercial Function. It was formed in 2014/15 and was established to ensure all government departments bolstered their commercial and contract management capability to deliver the best value for the taxpayer.

To support Commercial capability uplift for commercial and contract management delivery, the GCF delivers over 60 learning and accreditation events each month, and manages a learning platform with over 95,000 users. Learners access learning on topics ranging from tackling modern slavery, capturing social value through public procurement, and how to effectively manage public sector contracts (over 32,000 learners have achieved Foundation Accreditation in the public sector, with over 800 having achieved Practitioner and Expert accreditation).

To maintain and build on the capability uplift efforts of the GCF, a Capability team leads on this strategic and operational delivery. The work of the Programme Management Office (PMO) within Capability spans both our transformation and change initiatives alongside critical business‑as‑usual (BAU) activities.

The PMO is key to ensuring an optimal projects portfolio for transforming and improving how we operate and strong business performance in areas such as governance, performance and benefits realisation. The PMO is a blended team that contains project delivery professionals who apply the competencies contained within The Project Delivery Capability Framework to support the BAU and change activities for Capability in the GCF to offer insights and support, whilst using this intelligence to drive transformation, improvements and guiding the business on how best to engage customers and stakeholders.

The Head of PMO is responsible for managing a team of project delivery professionals who will support the team to achieve change and transformation, performance management and governance activities. The role holder will use and develop a suite of services to meet customer, business priorities, supporting the commercial and contract management uplift activities for GCF.

The role sits within an Infrastructure and Transformation pillar in Capability that seeks to support or put in place the systems, processes and practices that enables us to be our most productive, to develop and grow sustainably and operate effectively as part of the GCF.

The PMO team in Capability straddles business as usual activities and transformation. The Head of PMO role will focus their teams on:

• Major Projects - investment led efforts to change technologies, structures, and processes, or creation of new learning, accreditation or other related services or products for GCF
• Governance and Project Support - applying project delivery best practices to support GCF governance and project delivery across Capability for activities outside of major projects to include resource management, tracking, planning and knowledge management
• Performance - establishing and leading the delivery of an operational excellence framework, testing business delivery and benefits realisation, performance analysis, assurance, and risk management to measure, monitor and improve our operational performance activities to strengthen the Capability approach within the GCF

The role is critical to achieving the strategic outcomes of the GCF and will form part of the Capability leadership team. The post holder will work closely with senior officials across the programme, Cabinet Office and organisations impacted by GCF service delivery.

From time to time you will be expected to be flexible in supporting the delivery of our intended business outcomes which may mean additional/different duties or a change of duties performed in your role.

Key responsibilities will include, but are not limited to

• Leadership and strategic direction: responsibility for the strategic direction of the transformation elements of GCF Capability. Developing and then maintaining a perpetual programme of change to support GCF Capability development, innovation and creation of new services or products
• Change and transformation: Through the delivery of projects and a PMO, provide change management expertise, thinking strategically and systemically to apply knowledge and professional judgement. Use business and behavioural insights for major projects and transformation to mitigate risks and influence effective change with functional areas (HR, commercial, digital and finance) and wider stakeholders
• Communications and stakeholder management: Leading internal and external relationships directly and through a team, as appropriate, tracking these using stakeholder mapping and associated techniques. This includes working within Capability, as part of the GCF and Cabinet Office, to assure effective and clear communications and management regarding delivery activities, performance and change
• Performance: Lead the design and continuous improvement of Capability performance framework, monitoring the implementation of the strategy and delivery, using team resources to provide assurance on realisation of benefits for the programme through planning, designing and ensuring that project and business delivery outputs align with the programme outcomes and relevant KPIs
• Project reporting: Accountable for projects portfolio level reporting and governance, risk management, benefits management and provision of data reporting and data management as applicable to the team
• Risk and Issue Management: ensure Capability teams are able to provide ongoing assurance on delivery of activities and projects, and leadership can ensure risks, issues, assumptions and dependencies are actively managed, put mitigations in place, and appropriate analysis and data is available to inform GCF Capability delivery and decision making
• Team leadership and performance management: for a team of up to 12. The role is responsible for recruitment, developing and motivating the team, including contractors and suppliers, temporary and permanent staff, ensuring that an effective and appropriately skilled team is maintained who provide project delivery expertise and competencies applied to BAU and change activities, to maintain a culture of continuous improvement, and govern individual and team performance optimised in line with strategic goals
• Managing a team and projects budget: providing regular forecasts, ensuring that spend is properly considered when committing funds and that whole life costs are factored in with sufficient operational budget available to support maintenance post-delivery if through project delivery