**This role has been appointed to. Please do get in touch with us if you are looking for a similar senior role.**
The Role
Sometimes a role comes along that’s just so good, it’s hard to resist looking that bit further. This is just that kind of role.
Leeds City Council is one of the best run Councils in the country. We’re big, the second largest in England, with a thriving economy, friendly, down to earth people, and a cultural, leisure and sports offer that meets every need. We’re genuinely proud of our diversity, our people, our place and our achievements, all delivered with a real Yorkshire twinkle in the eye.
This role is at the heart of our future as a Council. Leading the corporate centre, working across the Council, supporting, leading and accelerating our ongoing evolution. We know there’s still a way to go, the challenges are too great for us to sit back and relax, it’s not in our nature.
All local government is facing a very challenging future, with a financial settlement predicted to be at least as bad as the worst of austerity. As a large city, this will hit all our people. At a time when they will need us and all we support the most, we will also be facing one of our biggest challenges to date.
This role will use the power, insight, levers and influence of the corporate centre to lead our response to these challenges: to re-align, refocus, challenge, support and adapt our services across the Council. To achieve the holy grail of leadership – our vision and strategy delivered with better services for less resources and an empowered, accountable, positive and supportive culture.
Our new Director will be the driving force behind all we do to reduce what we spend while we modernise, exploit digital opportunities, adapt our behaviours and reconfigure all we do to keep serving our great city, delivering agreed priorities and keeping Leeds as a special place to work and live.
The Person
Our new Director of Resources may already be an exceptional leader, but if not, they’ll certainly have the potential to become one. They will have delivered real, sustainable and tangible change in an organisation with finite or tightly constrained resources. They’ll understand what drives the public sector, why we care so much about our mission to serve our city. They’ll know the value of money, supporting critical services, with a focus on making a difference. They’ll have a track record of building teams and alliances across and within all levels of organisations, shaping agendas, setting priorities, holding to account, encouraging, nurturing and facilitating people to perform and deliver in an uncertain and ever-changing environment. Bringing a healthy balance between softer people focused skills and the edge to drive change, they’ll use their judgement and focus to strengthen all we do. Having highly developed political insights and judgement, aligned with deep knowledge of local government and public service is a must, but we’re open to this having been developed through experience outside of local government.
The new Director will inherit a high performing team, with depths across their technical specialisms. This creates a rare opportunity for us to look beyond specific technical expertise and to focus on leadership, past impact and future potential. We’re a diverse city, and want our leaders to reflect all that makes Leeds unique. We know we’re big and that this can be daunting. It means people are often stepping up, either in scale or seniority. That’s ok, where we can see clear evidence of the capacity to make this change and still deliver. We’ll offer the support needed to transition to Leeds.
If you’re excited by the prospect of taking your next big step, ambitious for yourself and for the difference you can make, and share our values, then download the Job Description and Person Specification below, learn more about us in the Links/Docs page and speak to our advising consultants Proventure to find out more. Mark Tobin is on 07717 725 844 mark.tobin@proventureconsulting.co.uk or Steve Cooley on 07747 698 829 stephen.cooley@proventureconsulting.co.uk
