Borderlands Senior Projects and Programmes Officer

Job Information
**Borderlands Senior Projects and Programmes Officer**

Introducing the Borderlands Partnership

The Borderlands are the meeting point of England and Scotland; an area of natural beauty with two national parks and a rich culture and history. We are home to resourceful communities, abundant natural resources and diverse businesses which have the potential to grow in new ways which brings real benefits to our local people and places whilst protecting the unique environment.

In response the Borderlands Partnership has come together as a unique, cross-border collaboration covering Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders in the south of Scotland and England’s border counties of Cumbria and Northumberland. Having successfully negotiated the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal, worth over £450m, in March 2021 we are now moving to the next stage and delivering the Deal to bring real benefits to the people, communities and businesses of our local area.

We work with a wide-range of businesses and organisations across the area as well as the UK Government and Scottish Government to do this by delivering the projects and programmes included in our Deal.

**The Role**
The Senior Projects and Programmes Officer role is an exciting position at the forefront of delivering our high-profile deal. To ensure its success you will be leading on liaison with the projects we are delivering and playing a central role in developing the programme areas of the Deal.

You will work closely with our partners who are developing their business cases for the projects acting as a critical friend to support their development where appropriate and liaise with local partners and the UK and Scottish Governments to guide them through the approval process. Once approved you will remain the key point of contact for projects, overseeing reporting, identifying challenges and risks and completing the checks on the project claims. Ranging from £1.5m projects to £50m worth of investment our projects will have a major impact on our local area and range across business growth and innovation, low carbon growth, improving places and our infrastructure.

Alongside the project specific work you will take a leading hands-on role in support the development and roll out of areas of Deal-wide programme activity. These are areas where the Partnership is taking the lead in delivering elements of the Deal such as Digital, Energy, Natural Capital and Places.

The Borderlands Programme Management Office is a small team connected with our five partner Councils, the UK Government and Scottish Government and through a network of growth Deals across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. As such there will be opportunities to work with other areas to share best practice and develop broader programme management knowledge and experience including through monitoring and evaluation, financial profiling and a wide-range of partnership activities. We are therefore looking for someone with energy, drive and ideas, as well as an eye for detail, good communications and personal skills and excellent organisation.

Northumberland County Council is the employing body for the Borderlands Partnership however the team works flexibly across the whole geography including from home and from partner buildings. You will be mostly working from home but with an opportunity to work from a local council building and there are regular in-person meetings across the region. Your formal base will be in either Carlisle, Morpeth, Dumfries or Newton St Boswell.

The post is 0.4FTE over a week and we would be pleased to discuss opportunities for secondment.

**What we offer**
As well as the opportunity to work in a dynamic, high-profile and exciting new partnership focused on making our area a better place to live, work and visit we offer a number of benefits:

- 26 days annual leave plus public and bank holidays rising to 31 days after 5 year of local government service (pro-rata for part-time employees)
- Flexible working scheme
- Enrolment into the Local Government Pension Scheme
- Local government discount scheme available to all employees
- A commitment to fair pay and work-life balance including through job sharing, flexible working, part-year working and compressed hours.
- Car leasing and salary sacrifice scheme

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