About the Borough This special place in South West London between the capital and the country has been a Royal borough longer than anywhere else - it is where the first kings of England were crowned. Today it is a vibrant and diverse borough, with a long history and strong cultural and community heritage. Kingston's riverside location, fantastic retail offer, historic market place and church, parks and gardens all make Kingston town centre the vibrant space it is, and each of our district town centres (Surbiton, New Malden, Tolworth and Chessington) have something unique to offer. Situated in Zone 6, Kingston is among the best-connected town centres in London – with direct train links from Kingston and Surbiton stations to Clapham Junction and London Waterloo, as well as Wimbledon for an interchange with the London Underground and Tramlink. Kingston’s people are innovative and entrepreneurial, and have a strong sense of community pride. The borough has been home to great industry and creativity for many years, reflected in assets such as the Rose Theatre, the International Youth Arts Festival and Kingston University, which boasts more new graduate business start-ups than any other. We have seen tremendous generosity and compassion within our communities, particularly in response to COVID-19, which is a demonstration of Kingston’s key strength. The council offers a strong level of support to vulnerable groups and those who need additional support, which has also increased significantly as a result of the pandemic. Like most places, the average age of our population is rising as more people are living longer, so we are working closely with residents to help them maintain their independence and further improve the cost effectiveness of our service to meet the ongoing rise in demand. Kingston is home to people from diverse and interesting cultures and backgrounds, which helps to create the rich sense of community shared across the borough. In particular, Kingston has a large Sri Lankan Tamil community and is home to more people from Korea than any other part of the UK. About the Role The Corporate Change and Improvement team is recruiting a project manager to deliver transformational change projects across projects within the Corporate Transformation Portfolio. This role will join the team working flexibly across a number of high profile and complex projects as part of our corporate transformation programme. We are looking for an experienced and flexible Project Manager with strong leadership skills who is excited about tackling diverse challenges. If you are solutions focused and like to work in a collaborative way to enable change and drive delivery then we would love to hear from you! About Us At Kingston, we are passionate about our Royal Borough and want to be known as a Council that is an exemplar for engaging and involving our communities in shaping the future. This is a new era for the Council, we are redefining the relationships we have with our residents, community groups, businesses, voluntary sector, central government and other partners, to ensure we deliver our ambitions and priorities set out in our Corporate Plan ‘Making Kingston Better, Together’. This role will sit within the Corporate Change and Improvement team, which is the engine room responsible for driving the Change & Transformation Programme across the organisation. Kingston has developed a very ambitious transformation agenda, which includes a number of large strategic programmes that will transform the way services are delivered and improve outcomes for residents. We are committed to delivering excellent public services to our residents and local businesses, which is why we place the user, and their needs, at the heart of what we do in all our service areas. As the council looks to implement a significant transformation programme, we are looking to recruit someone that can not only support and develop our services but who will be excited to define and deliver a new delivery model for customer services across the council that provides the best possible customer care to our residents. As a team we are dynamic, innovative and supportive. We like to test and pilot new innovative ways of working and digital tools to help support project and programme delivery. The team has a dynamic skill set and we work together to support and learn from each other. If you enjoy working in a fast paced environment and working with multiple stakeholders then this is a very exciting time to join the team. About You To be successful in this role you will: Have a proven track record of managing complex change/ transformation projects in a public sector setting and delivery positive outcomes Need to have strong leadership skills and be able to manage effective relationships across the organisation in a complex stakeholder environment, including matrix managing project working groups/ teams Be able to demonstrate strong stakeholder engagement and management skills, at all levels of the organisation Have a collaborative approach to delivering change, positive outcomes and benefits Be competent with PPM delivery models and core practices including; risk management, business case development, organisational skills, influencing and problem solving Successful track record of delivering benefits - financial and non financial Be an excellent communicator, problem solver and influencer