Senior Strategic Project Lead – Place Partnerships (Winsford)

Active Cheshire is a value led organisation who lives and breathes our core values of: Inclusivity, Collaboration, Integrity, Passion, Innovation. Our vision is to see more people, more active, more often living longer, happier, healthier lives. We will connect sport, physical activity, and movement opportunities across Cheshire & Warrington to provide fairer and greater access for all, whilst tackling health inequalities.

In line with the Sport England Uniting The Movement strategy and Active Cheshire’s own strategy, we know that great things happen in local communities when people from that community are at the heart of their development. Building strong ‘place-based’ partnerships around shared purpose and utilising place learning to drive strategic decisions will enable long-term, sustainable change.

We’re looking for someone to lead our movement. Someone to galvanise partners, to enable change, to be focused on the long-term vision with a flexible approach to getting there.

Success over the next 12-18 months will be defined as having a strong structure and approach in place, including identification of conditions for change to move forward into subsequent place expansion phases. That next stage will be to work alongside Sport England and place partners to build a consensus for the future of place-based working in Cheshire Warrington.

Accountabilities (not exhaustive)

• Governance and leadership – to ensure sound governance and leadership exists with Sponsors for each place area appointed and governance structure embedded to mitigate risk and maximise impact
• Stronger partnerships – to foster an environment of trust on which collaborative relationships will be formed, with clear roles and commitments from key stakeholders
• Clarity of purpose – To swiftly and effectively communicate a unified vision and purpose with shared objectives, ensuring alignment across all involved partners.
• Conditions for change defined – articulate measurable indicators of conditions for change, providing a framework for ongoing evaluation, learning and impact
• Knowledge consolidation – Utilise and develop networks where insights from existing work will be integrated, reducing duplication and enhancing efficiency in future phases.
• Readiness for implementation – ensure a solid foundation in place so that the transition to the next phase will be well-structured, ensuring momentum is maintained.

Relationships

Strong, meaningful and collaborative relationships will be the key to the successful delivery of this role. Key internal relationships include those with the Head of Strategy, the staff team, and the CEO. Externally, Sport England and the wider Active Partnership network, place Sponsors, strategic and community partners.

Impact

Success will not be easy, but when it is delivered it will be hugely impactful. Our identified localities in Crewe, Ellesmere Port and Warrington Central will have embedded leaders aligned to our mission, partner networks who collaborate and learn freely with each other to share good practice and reduce/remove duplication.

Person Specification

The skills and attributes outlined in this description are not exhaustive and we welcome candidates who can bring different relevant experiences to the role.

Skills & Knowledge

• A natural leader (leading for cultural change and an ability to empower others)
• Relationship building (at a local, sub-regional and national level)
• Strong initiative and finisher (seeing ideas through to successful delivery)
• Excellent communication (both verbal and written)
• Networking (ensuring new organisation are knowledgeable and involved)
• Training (organising and delivering leadership training)
• Prioritisation (understanding what’s important amongst competing influences)
• Resilient, adaptive and responsive (when navigating through changing, complex and sometimes uncertain environments)
• Can show strength and expertise in best practice ways (to share and connect learning and to support continuous improvement)
• Digital technology (proficiency with MS Office and other software).
• Ability to travel and work evenings and/or weekends.

Knowledge & Experience

• Ability to build positive and sustainable stakeholder relationships at all levels
• Understanding and experience of whole system approaches
• Ability to bridge gaps between community partners and the local strategic landscape, with a focus on co-creation and co-design
• Managing strategic relationships and influencing at a strategic level
• Connecting local strategies and creating shared purpose/alignment of priorities
• Strategic planning, implementation, and delivery
• Project management, including projects involving multiple partners
• Knowledge of monitoring and evaluation principles in physical activity settings
• Reporting on evaluation, learning and insight to different audiences
• Drawing on insight and evidence to facilitate conversations and present recommendations for organisational and system level improvements
• Utilising learning and insight to expand successful models across places
• Sharing local learning on a regional and national level, adding to connectivity of learning and further demonstrating value of the sport and physical activity sector
• Understanding of how issues affect equity and inequalities in physical activity
• Working closely with colleagues within a multidisciplinary team, allowing for connectivity across workstreams and shared learning