Corporate Director of Resident Experience & Digital

Job Description

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: CD1£130,384.56 – £137,022.96 inclusive of London Weighting

Contract Type: Full-time Permanent

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 25/07/2025

Proposed Interview Date: August/September 2025 (further details on the various selection exercises will be confirmed closer to the time)

Reference: 1818

About Us:

The London Borough of Waltham Forest is a vibrant outer London borough in north London, we have a thriving business district and close transport links to central London.
Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, Waltham Forest is a great place, benefiting from a blend of ages, heritage and local history where people want to live, work and visit.

Waltham Forest is one of thirty-two London boroughs, bordering Hackney, Haringey, Enfield, Redbridge and Epping Forest District Council, in north-east London.

Within the borough we have four main neighbourhood areas with a distinct identity: Chingford, Leyton, Leytonstone, and Walthamstow. An estimated 278,400 residents call Waltham Forest home.

Waltham Forest has a younger-than-average population with 24.5% of residents being aged 0 to 19 compared to 23%in London and nationally.

Like London, Waltham Forest also has a high proportion of working-age adults aged 16 to 64 (69.6% compared to 68.9% in London and 62.9% nationally).

There are proportionately fewer people aged over 65 living in Waltham Forest (10.2%) compared to London (11.9%) and the UK average (18.6%).

We are one of the most diverse areas in the country (top 20) with an estimated 47%t of residents are from a minority ethnic background.

According to the 2021 Census, the top three countries of origin for residents born overseas are Romania, Pakistan and Other EU countries.

The top languages spoken locally other than English are Romanian, Urdu, Bulgarian, Polish, Turkish and Spanish.

Waltham Forest full-time workers in 2023 have a median weekly income of £764.80 just below the London average £796.30 higher than the median income for England £682.60.

Waltham Forest's deprivation score is 25.209, which means it is ranked number 12 out of all London Boroughs (excluding the City of London) and number 79 out of all 317 authorities in England (LG Inform).

Our Population Projections

Population projections estimate that the Waltham Forest population will increase from 276,350 residents in 2021 to a total of 287,800 by 2026.

The fastest growing group is projected to be those aged 18-21 (13.5%) and 65+ (15.5%).

Our Health and Disability

A total of 12,300 residents considered their health to be bad or very bad. This is equivalent to 6% of the population.

Health tends to deteriorate further with age with 42% of population aged 65 and over (10,906) having a limiting long-term health problem or disability.

Waltham Forest's Health Index score increased in 2021. The borough has an overall Health Index score of 104.1, which is up 3.6 points compared with the previous year.

(A score of 100 represents average levels of health in England in 2015. A higher number always means better health and a lower number means worse health).

Educational Settings

In Waltham Forest, there are currently 51 primary schools, 15 secondary schools, four Family Hubs, four 16 plus, three nurseries and two all-through.

In total, there’s approximately 45,000 pupils in Waltham Forest. There are almost twice as many primary school students as there is secondary.

Please visit our Data Hub if you would like to find out more about the demographics in Waltham Forest, including data briefs, posters, Power BI dashboard, charts and ONS’s tools.

The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please e-mail recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.

About the role:

The London Borough of Waltham Forest is looking for a dynamic and strategic leader to spearhead the improvement of resident experience which is at the heart of our transformation journey. This role has direct responsibility for significant service areas across Resident Experience, Business Support and ICT & Digital. This includes overseeing an operational leadership team to drive performance, financial control and delivery of high-quality outcomes. Crucially, this role will also provide system and thought leadership across the Council and with partners to drive behavioural shift, equipping staff to put residents at the heart of everything we do.

About You

As the Corporate Director, you will take this agenda forward, shaping how we interact with our residents and how technology can enable services to be more efficient, inclusive and impactful.

You will work across all service areas to design and deliver seamless, relational pathways of support that enable early intervention, reduce failure demand, promote independence and maximise opportunities for strengths-based interventions.

You will have responsibility to drive down repeat contacts and other failure demand to unlock significant savings and efficiencies to ensure that we are able to direct support to those that need it most.

You will also be accountable for setting the vision and driving delivery of the Council’s Digital and Technology roadmap, ensuring it is future-proof, secure, scalable and aligned to better meet the needs of residents and services. The post holder will bring expertise and experience to advise and lead council-wide transformation in this area.

You will have operational accountability and oversight of core infrastructure, data strategy, cybersecurity, systems architecture and technology leadership. You will ensure that the council has a high-performing Digital and Technology service that is responsive to the needs of internal users and resilient in supporting critical frontline services. You will lead the Council’s cybersecurity strategy, ensuring robust technical defences and incident response plans are in place. You will have responsibility for maintaining organisation-wide ICT business continuity.

>> Click here to download the Role Profile <<

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and control a range of Council services.
• Member of the Extended Leadership Team.
• Accountable for operational and strategic implementation of decisions and direction for the service and for project/programme management for cross cutting corporate and partnership initiatives.
• Accountable for the integration of a range of professional /operational areas which are critical to the success of the organisation and for performance and service delivery across the service.
• A significant degree of evaluative judgement is required in relation to risks and issues, with the ability to identify the potential impact of a wide range of changing and potentially conflicting internal and external factors. Conclusions and decisions seize opportunities and mitigate risks.
• Direction setting, planning and prioritisation is over several years to ensure the service achieves its strategic goals, reviewing and adjusting to take account of the risks and opportunities presented by a changing political and regulatory environment.
• Post-holder required to attend significant out of hours meetings.

Qualifications and Requirements:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent standard.
• Relevant post-graduate/professional qualifications.

Terms and conditions:

The below terms and conditions apply to this role:

• Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;
• Satisfactory declaration of interest;

This post is politically restricted therefore the post holder is disqualified from undertaking certain political activities under the Local Government Officers (Political Restrictions) Regulations 1990.

As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the Council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The Council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/jobs-and-training/find-jobs-and-other-opportunities/working-us.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact

Lee Witham, Corporate Director of Culture and Workforce Development at Lee.Witham@walthamforest.gov.uk or

Maria Matthews, Leadership Support Assistant at Maria.Matthews@walthamforest.gov.uk

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.

Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice.