About the Role

Recognising the importance of infrastructure, Tower Hamlets Council has an extensive Infrastructure Planning Team, which you will co-lead and manage. The team are a core planning function with expertise on infrastructure planning, CIL and S106, but that is not the half of it. The team are breaking new ground and establishing infrastructure planning at the heart of great place making, and spatial planning and delivery.

With the aim of enabling the planning, funding, development and delivery of infrastructure, we are utilising data and technical knowledge as well as seeking out new and innovative ways, with a wide range of partners, to make sure the Council delivers the right infrastructure, in the right place, at the right time.

All of this in one of the most diverse boroughs in London, delivering significant housing and economic growth alongside a rapidly expanding population. The borough also benefits from the amazingly rich history of East London and an abundance of heritage assets such as the Tower of London, Island Gardens and Victoria Park.

In the first place you will be leading our Levies and Growth Team, with further details on these functions below. However, we are a wider service that also covers Section 106 Planning Obligations, Infrastructure Programming, Development Coordination, Development Viability and Utilities Planning. As new challenges come up there is often space for us to flex our roles and structure allowing opportunities to take on new challenges and support our collective development.

The Levies Team:

-      A well-established team and well-respected experts in their field. We have excellent processes and systems in place to provide a robust service, collecting significant amounts of Mayoral and Local CIL and supporting on-site delivery through CIL-in-Kind.

-      Recognising the likely emergence of the Building Safety Levy in 2025, the team are working with Government and preparing to tackle this new workload.

-      We keep our CIL Charging Schedule under regular review and will always act if we think that there is evidence for us to make adjustments to it.

The Growth Team:

-      This team help the council understand our collective infrastructure needs and our ability to deliver to meet those needs. This includes our living Infrastructure Delivery Plan, sophisticated CIL and S106 forecasting and subsequent analysis reporting on needs vs. means.

-      The team also take on a range of infrastructure specific challenges. In recent years we have produced innovative evidence and plans on matters such as children’s play, community spaces, digital, water and energy planning. We are now working to see that this translates into effective implementation, alongside considering our next set of evidence and intelligence challenges.

The position offers the successful applicant with a high-profile role that engages with major developers, strategic partners, senior managers and members of the Council.

About You

Tower Hamlets is a great place to live and work and we are passionate about what we do. We are committed to creating great places that make our communities proud to live in and that can be enjoyed, now and long into the future. To help us achieve this we are looking for someone who will share our passion and relish the opportunity to tackle the exciting challenges ahead.

Your technical and professional knowledge will be important and you will be expected to be able to deliver high quality outcomes using practical programme management and team management skills. More important will be your ability set the right example and inspire. You will be skilled in leading, motivating, and creating a positive and effective working environment for both the team and the individuals within it. In addition, you will make great relationships with your team, colleagues, partners and management, to enable the collective delivery of our aims.

Requirements

This post is open to candidates with appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to fulfil the job description and person specification attached to the role.

Benefits and Allowances

-      Annual Leave – generous leave allowance with continuous service provisions, granting additional leave to be achieved;

-      Pensions - You will automatically become a member of the Council's rewarding pension scheme;

-      Flexible working - the council seeks to ensure that employees achieve improved work life balance and offer flexibility to staff members such as the option to work from home (when appropriate);

-      Learning & development – the Council promotes continuous development of staff members at all times and support a wide range of internal and external training including project management, leadership development framework & technical training.

-      Staff loan scheme for annual season ticket - The council gives interest-free season ticket loans to staff who have successfully completed their probationary period;

-      Travel schemes/allowances – this includes: cycle to work scheme, pool bike scheme and expenses covered with all travel related to working task;

-      Employee Assistance Programme - the council offers an employee assistance programme that provides confidential counselling support services for both personal and work-related issues to staff.

Additional Employee Information

Closing date: 15^th December 2024

Shortlisting date: Week commencing 16^th December 2024

Interview date: Week commencing 6^th January 2025

If you have any questions about the roles or would like and informal chat, please contact Matthew on: matthew.pullen@towerhamlets.gov.uk

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