Project Officer (Internal Only)

Our Benefits

Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we’re transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.

You’ll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!

Why choose us?

We offer a vibrant working environment with:

• a competitive salary
• a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
• lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
• generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
• hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.

We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.

About the role

Internal Only

North Northamptonshire is currently on an exciting journey to transform its buildings and infrastructure and as part of this, we are looking for a Project Officer to join our Capital Projects team.

As part of the capital projects team you will work to define, develop and deliver projects that range from £25k to £10M of which many can be considered complex projects due to the variety of internal/external stakeholders - funders, services, end users, clients and developers. To lead projects managing external consultant design teams and contractor delivery teams.

You will have responsibility for the delivery of multiple projects at one time across a variety of areas, education, leisure, assets, communities and children's services, ensuring objectives are delivered realising all benefits with full governance observed.

You will need experience of working with a range of people internally and externally to deliver a project or initiative. Alongside this you will also need good organisation, literacy, numeracy and communication skills.

Projects will be based across North Northamptonshire and you will need you to attend site meetings or meetings in the office on average 2 days a week. DBS check is required.

If you would like more information about this role or are interested in applying, please contact Victoria Phillipson Victoria.phillipson@northnorthants.gov.uk

What will you be doing?

Project Management. Delivery of a suite of projects from brief through design and delivery. Procuring contractors, initiating, a project, planning, executing, managing, and closing the project to achieve specific targets to the agreed timescales.

Stakeholder Management. Develop effective, relationships with stakeholders and partners, both internal and external to the council and to ensure that the councils programme of capital projects are delivered to specification, on time and within budget.

Governance. To work within the legal requirements, policies, financial procedures, governance, procurement, framework rules and adhering to the recommended practice to protect the council from risk. Ensuring that all members of the project team are fully conversant with those parameters and approvals are sought at the required steps in the process.

Risk & Issue Management. Develop and manage the project risk and issues registers, regularly monitoring and updating these to ensure the risks are managed.

Finance. Providing monthly monitoring and forecasting, managing the accounting process from setting up the supplier to receipting invoices and monitoring payments to suppliers including value engineering where there are budget constraints or issues impacting the budget.

Procurement. Responsibility for the end-to-end process of procurement for the project including tendering, selection and awarding of the contract for the specialist roles and the principal contractor.

Leadership. Motivating, managing and setting parameters on the project such as time, cost and quality roles & responsibilities within the project team.

Reporting. To report to the necessary project boards and stakeholders providing advice on required solutions to issues that have arisen during a project. To report accurate, up to date information to the relevant parties as and when required.

Communication. To develop a communication plan to ensure effective communication with all stakeholders and the project team is maintained as set out throughout the project. This should establish the methods of communication based on the receiver’s requirements.

Agile. Be agile and flexible enough to adapt the project ensuring the project has flexibility within its parameters to allow for change should the strategy, regulations or outcome require change during the delivery of the project.

About you

The successful candidate will beagile and flexible enough to adapt ensuring the project has flexibility within its parameters to allow for change should the strategy, regulations or outcome require change during the delivery of the project. The post will be remote working, however there is a requirement to attend the project site and Team Meetings in person as needed, it is anticipated this would be on average 2 days a week.

You will have good numeracy and literacy and ideally a relevant project management qualification or equivalent alongside knowledge and experience of manging projects.

Knowledge and experience of local authorities is key particularly to provide a knowledge of elements such as governance, approvals and procurement processes.