Digital and IT Business Partner

Kingston Council
Kingston, Sutton, Other
As required
Permanent
Full Time
K
36
£56,172 - £61,617
Per annum
30 days

14/06/2021, 23:55

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.

We are looking for an exceptional candidate to join our Digital & IT Business Partner team and ensure that the shared service is well aligned with business goals, and supports the delivery of excellent services to the residents of Kingston and Sutton.

This role will require you to be a customer advocate within Digital & IT, and an ambassador for the Digital Service at a strategic level across the organisations that we support.  On joining you will be assigned a set of services and/or organisations.

This will mean that you will be involved in activities such as:

  • Leading meetings helping Services define the problems that digital & IT solutions could help solve
  • Participate in programme & project boards chaired by Directors
  • Meet regularly with senior stakeholders to discuss their needs and the performance of the Digital & IT service
  • Hold meetings with other teams within Digital & IT to ensure that the services needs are clearly understood. 
  • Help your services put together business cases and bids as part of the annual budget process and allocation of capital funding 

Digital and IT is a shared service between Kingston and Sutton councils providing digital and technology services to both councils as well as a number of arm's length companies.  

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 our agile delivery strategy. We are proud of our digital culture, and have a team of excellent professionals working across multi-disciplinary teams to deliver our new digital services.

Both councils are undertaking significant transformation of their services. We are therefore looking to recruit vibrant, talented people who would be excited to help us build user centred, modern digital services across two councils.

Whether your previous experience is in the public or private sectors, you will bring a commitment to excellence, proven expertise and a passion for public services.

Although the role is not a technical one, successful candidates must demonstrate good understanding of IT, its application in a range of business contexts and be able to work effectively with technical teams. 

To be successful in the role you need to able to demonstrate that you:

  • Have excellent communications skills
  • Have the ability to influence at all levels 
  • Are comfortable presenting to audiences of varied sizes and produce well structured, high quality reports and recommendations.
  • Have an understanding of the major trends within Digital & IT and how they will affect IT and business strategies in the future. 
  • Are able to demonstrate a good knowledge of structured project management techniques as you will be required to sit on project boards and will play a key role in successful project delivery. Ideally you will also have experience of working within Agile project delivery structures and an understanding of the benefits of this approach.
  • Have been a significant participant in at least one implementation of a major IT system either in a business or IT role. 

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

In addition we offer a modern and flexible working environment for our staff supported by our IT infrastructure, Google Chromebooks and Google Apps, which have acted as a key enabler for collaborative and streamlined working. The COVID-19 pandemic has required us to be even more flexible in how we work and manage staff workloads, ensuring they have the correct equipment and resources to be able to maximise their talents and looking after their wellbeing.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits, some of which include:

  • Generous annual leave entitlement plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply)
  • Three volunteering days per year
  • Flexible and agile working arrangements
  • Comprehensive learning and development programme
  • Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
  • Interest free season ticket loans
  • Local Government Pension Scheme
  • Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
  • Zip car scheme
  • Free eye tests and contribution towards glasses
  • Confidential wellbeing and counselling support
  • Subsidised gym membership
Please apply online outlining what skills, abilities and experience you can bring which makes you an ideal candidate for this role. Please ensure you refer to the requirements outlined in the job profile when completing your application.

We pride ourselves on being a diverse, tolerant and welcoming Borough and we aim to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve. We are respectful of difference and realise the positive value of diversity in our workforce. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds and particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and disabled candidates as these groups are currently under-represented in our workforce.

We are proud to be recognised as a Disability Confident employer, and are committed to thinking differently about disability and taking action to improve how we recruit, retain and develop disabled people. We guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum/essential criteria for the role.   

We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are an accredited London Living Wage Employer and this means that everyone working at the Royal Borough of Kingston, regardless of whether they are permanent employees or third-party contractors and suppliers receive the London Living Wage. The real Living Wage is higher than the government’s minimum, or National Living Wage, and is an independently calculated hourly rate of pay that is based on the actual cost of living.

The UK has introduced a new points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance.

Good Business Charter

This opportunity is closed to applications.