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Director of People Services

Employee Specification

Please see below criteria which is used throughout the assessment process. This has been set out to explain what is measured at each stage of the application process. To progress to the interview stage, applications must clearly demonstrate how they meet all of the essential criteria.

 

 

Criteria Requirement
Essential Desirable

Knowledge, Qualifications and Experience:

Senior level experience working within the public sector or similarly complex, regulated environments. 

  

Extensive expertise in employment legislation, workforce governance and HR policy, with the ability to ensure compliance across a large, complex public sector organisation.

  

Substantial senior leadership experience delivering organisation wide people strategies, including organisational development, culture change and workforce transformation.

  

Proven experience leading workforce planning, talent acquisition, leadership development, succession planning and organisational resilience.

  

Strong track record of providing strategic advice to senior leaders, Boards, Members or equivalent governance bodies to support informed decision making.

  

Demonstrable experience leading digital and data enabled HR modernisation, including the use of workforce intelligence to inform organisational design and performance improvement. 

  

Significant experience managing constructive employee relations and strategic partnership working with trade unions and staff networks.

  

Proven experience of strategic financial and resource management, including oversight of budgets, commissioning, service level agreements and value for money assurance.

  

Commercial acumen with experience developing or leading cost effective traded or income generating services with external partners.

  

Must hold a professionally recognised CIPD qualification at Chartered Member level or above.

  

Professionally qualified to CIPD Fellow (or equivalent), or able to demonstrate equivalent depth of professional experience. 

  

Knowledge of local government terms and conditions, employment frameworks and sector specific workforce challenges.

  

Understanding of emerging trends in digital HR technologies, workforce intelligence and organisational design.

  

Skills Required:

Outstanding strategic leadership and change management skills, with the ability to lead complex transformation across a large public sector environment.

  

Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and engage senior stakeholders and political or governance audiences. 

  

Strong analytical and evaluative skills, with the ability to interpret workforce intelligence to drive strategic planning and performance improvement. 

  

Highly developed negotiation, persuasion and influencing skills, including the ability to build effective partnerships with trade unions, leaders and external stakeholders. 

  

Strong organisational and planning skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and deliver high quality outcomes at pace. 

  

Proven ability to embed modern, inclusive and customer focused HR practice across a diverse organisation.

  

 

Job outline

Overall purpose

Provide strategic leadership for People Services, ensuring an integrated and future focused approach to workforce capability, culture, performance and organisational effectiveness. This includes strategic oversight of all People Services functions, covering: HR Business Partnering, Business Services – including payroll, recruitment, HR systems and data, contracts, and compliance, Specialist Services – including policy and reward, organisational development and inclusion, and occupational health and safety, Learning, Skills and Organisational Development.

Lead the design and delivery of a modern, adaptable workforce that supports organisational transformation and responds effectively to current and future demand, ensuring a seamless, high‑performing and customer‑focused service.

Principal Accountabilities

  1. Provide strategic leadership as Head of Profession for People Services, aligning all workforce functions to corporate priorities and outcomes, and ensuring a modern, effective and future focused service across the Council.

  2. Lead the development and delivery of an integrated people strategy that builds a high performing, future ready workforce, drives organisational development and culture change, strengthens leadership capability, and embeds modern, customer focused practice in support of transformation.

  3. Provide strategic advice to senior officers, Members and stakeholders on all employment and workforce matters, supporting informed decision making and ensuring alignment with organisational priorities.

  4. Provide strategic oversight of workforce governance, ensuring the development, implementation and continual review of workforce policies and initiatives, in collaboration with stakeholders and in line with organisational requirements, legislation and professional standards.

  5. Provide strategic leadership for the development of integrated approaches to internal capability building by aligning workforce planning, talent acquisition and organisational resilience with a strong emphasis on leadership and succession development, ensuring a cohesive approach to internal CPD and corporate learning.

  6. Embed workforce intelligence at the centre of workforce planning, organisational design and performance improvement, and champion digital and data enabled HR services to modernise People Services and accelerate transformation.

  7. Lead cross Council collaboration to shape organisation wide people solutions and ensure People Services contributes effectively to corporate priorities and transformation programmes.

  8. Build strong and constructive employee relations through effective partnership with trade unions and staff networks, promoting early resolution of issues and sustaining positive, collaborative engagement.

  9. Represent and promote the Council on HR matters at local, regional and national levels, maintaining constructive relationships with professional bodies, partner organisations and wider stakeholder groups.

  10. Represents the Executive Director of Corporate Resources in all areas pertaining to the HR service and other Directorate wide matters, when requested by the Executive Director.

  11. Provide strategic oversight of People Services budgets, commissioning and service level agreements to ensure efficient, value for money delivery, with a strong commercial focus on the cost-effective provision of traded services to schools and external partners.

  12. Contributes to the management of the Council via membership of the Council’s Senior Leadership Team and civil contingency arrangements (agreed on-call rota arrangements).

  13. Be accountable for the delivery of service objectives, standards and performance outcomes for People Services, ensuring high quality, effective and measurable contribution to organisational priorities.

  14. The above principal accountabilities are not exhaustive and may vary without changing the character of the job or level of responsibility.