Strategic Lead North Paddington Programme

**About Us**:
**THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF GRACE’S PASSION AND DEDICATION**

The Environment & Communities Directorate in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where dedicated people like Grace are using their skills and passion to progress environmental action in the heart of London.

It was at university where Grace first started campaigning for improved recycling facilities, water refill stations, and other eco friendly initiatives. When she saw the real difference people could make when they came together, she knew she wanted to dedicate her career to community action for the planet.

When she joined us as Principal Engagement Officer, Climate Emergency, she quickly established herself as a passionate advocate for community outreach, engaging various stakeholders across Westminster in the social causes, impacts and solutions to climate change, air pollution, and biodiversity loss.

Grace became a driving force behind our first Citizens’ Climate Assembly, which took place across two weekends in the summer of 2023. Fifty residents were chosen at random from across our diverse communities to come together, learn about the climate emergency, and deliberate how we overcome the barriers to becoming a net zero city by 2040. The assembly produced several recommendations which have informed the evolution of our Climate Emergency Action Plan. Due to the success of this initiative, we’re holding more assemblies to continue community involvement in local decision-making.

To see the work of the Westminster Citizens’ Climate Assembly, **click here**.

**The Role**:
As North Paddington Strategic Lead you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster’s success. The North Paddington Programme works in partnership with local people and uses community engagement to widen our reach and improve relationships with the people of this vibrant area. When you join us you’ll focus on developing our strategic focus with the aim of ensuring better outcomes and services for residents and other stakeholders. Leading the promotion and future development of the programme, and working to achieve cross-organisational support, we’ll also expect you to develop an insights process that allows us to understand the evolving needs of the area.

Ensuring participation remains at the heart of the programme and aligns with the needs of the local communities, you’ll offer confident and professional stakeholder management, and liaise across services to gain information updates and review service improvements. You’ll also provide frequent updates relating to the progress, risks and mitigations to the programme, lead on the development of a suite of documents and reporting, and oversee the planning and implementation of community events and projects.

You’ll have a number of other important responsibilities - these include deploying problem solving approaches that enable the programme to progress in line with required milestones, providing leadership that encourages your colleagues to recognise their contribution to our objectives, and fostering a culture of high standards, performance and accountability. We’ll also expect you to ensure tight budgetary controls and prioritise use of resources to support the delivery of the council’s City for All vision, champion our approach to unified public services, and develop change management programmes that deliver improvements to the services we provide.

Please refer to the **Job Description** for more information.

**About You**:
To be a success in this exciting senior role you’ll have extensive stakeholder management skills, and the ability to brief and summarise a wide variety of information and present it to a diverse range of audiences. You should possess well developed experience of coordinating work across multi-disciplinary Council departments and external stakeholders, be capable of leading and overseeing programmes, and be willing to co produce and innovate with local communities.

You should have good financial and budget management skills with the ability to determine, analyse, monitor and evaluate performance indicators and data, and present complex information in an understandable way. Capable of motivating your colleagues to deliver against their objectives, your strong interpersonal skills will allow you to connect with a wide range of different audiences, particularly senior managers and Members.

**What We Offer**:
Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates