Employment and Skills Manager

Contact details for an informal discussion: For a confidential conversation about this role please contact Graham Hart on 020 73613531. 

About Us:

A strong and inclusive economy helps people achieve their ambitions; it provides the opportunities for local businesses to thrive and for residents from all walks of life, including young people just starting out, to gain skills and jobs that will help them progress and realise their potential.

The Council’s Economic Development Team are leading on the partnership work to support good growth, where all residents can access opportunities and businesses prosper to sustain a vibrant local economy. 

The Role:

Kensington and Chelsea is one of London's most vibrant boroughs - and there's never been a more exciting time to join us. We're on a journey of transformation, changing our culture, better engaging with all our residents and firmly placing the needs of our communities first. 

Our new Economy Strategy outlines our ambitions to support the local economy including assisting residents to gain employment and to progress with their ambitions. 

This is a newly created senior post within our Economic Development Team leading on our Employment and Skills activities.  The Council's Economic Development Team leads and coordinates the contribution of the Council, partners and other agencies to delivering a strong local economy.  It is an exciting time in this policy area as the council has worked closely with partners in developing an Economy Strategy and action plan for the Borough.  This strategy seeks to improve access to opportunities for residents and support a vibrant local economy. 

This role will enable you to shape our partnership work and delivery to improve the employment prospects of residents and influence local skills provision.  Reporting to the Head of Economic Development you will take a proactive lead in the relevant theme in the Economy Strategy and work effectively with your staff and colleagues to build positive and effective partnerships.  You will play a vital role in taking this work forward and creating the right environment for this work to flourish. 

About You:

You will possess a detailed understanding of the employment and skills policy landscape and the role of local authorities in facilitating and developing local solutions and initiatives.  This will be supported by significant experience in the management and delivery of employment support programmes, including the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. 

To be successful in this role you will demonstrate experience of leading, or chairing partnership forums with a focus upon seeking consensus and agreed actions. This will require excellent communication skills, including building and maintaining relationships. 

You will be able to demonstrate a high degree of diplomacy and political sensitivity, identifying critical issues and working to resolve areas of potential conflict.

Possessing a good awareness of the issues and barriers faced by more vulnerable residents, such as those with health conditions, long term unemployed or other issues.

High quality analytical skills to review data and information from a broad range of sources, interpreting complex information and drawing out recommendations for policy and actions.

Demonstrable skills in producing high quality written work, reports, briefings, presentations and business case. Confident and experienced in public speaking.

Leadership and management skills, including line management of staff and their development.

With sound financial management skills to plan budgets and monitor spending for projects and activity. 

Role Requirements: 

• Providing the Council’s Lead member with advice and guidance on employment and skills policy.
• To maintain an understanding of current and emerging employment and skills policies and priorities, nationally and for London.
• Leading on taking forward the range of employment and skills actions contained within the Economy Strategy, to ensure that the range of actions are progressed in a timely fashion working with partners, colleagues and statutory partners. This will include activity to promote apprenticeship awareness and activity, increasing employment outcomes for our more vulnerable residents and galvanising a wide array of partners in supporting the local employment agenda.
• The Manager will chair the borough’s Employment Partnership Group and any related officer/partner groups that focus upon employment and skills provision, support and issues.
• Working with the Head of Economic Development and other senior colleagues to shape and influence the employment and skills agenda in the borough.
• Working in partnership with others (boroughs, GLA and strategic partners) to shape and influence the employment and skills provision in London.
• Developing employment initiatives, to address unmet needs or barriers preventing residents successfully gaining or retaining employment.
• To work with colleagues to develop, plan and deliver initiatives that achieve positive employment outcomes.

We work in partnership with Hampshire County Council (HCC) who deliver many transactional services on our behalf. Although most communications will be from HCC, all selection and appointment decisions will be made by RBKC. Certain services are shared across more than one Council area to nearby neighbouring Authorities. This enhances delivery and reduces costs. Your recruitment information will advise if your remit extends beyond RBKC. 

We will primarily contact candidates by e-mail throughout the recruitment process, please monitor your email junk / spam folder as our system generated emails may be allocated to these folders by your email settings.

We engage our staff with a variety of learning types including face-to-face and virtual learning because we want to ensure our staff understand our values and behaviours, grow their skills and develop their careers. 

We are committed to promoting equality and respecting diversity and welcome applications from all sections of the community. 

We are a Disability Confident Employer – committed to ensuring that our recruitment and selection process is inclusive and accessible.