Head of Programme Management Office in Barnsley

Position reference: 50145810

Directorate: Children's Services | Service: Commissioning

Working Arrangements: Hybrid

Contract type: Permanent

This post requires a Basic Criminal Record Check. Prospective employees will be required to give a reasonable account of any significant periods (6 months or more in the past 3 years) of time living abroad. When applying, please ensure you are prepared to start work with all the necessary legal documents, such as a valid visa, relevant to the type of work you will be undertaking. Please be aware that our organisation does not possess a Home Office license and, as a result, is unable to provide sponsorship for anyone seeking a visa as a skilled or temporary migrant worker.

Pensions Regulations have provisions to reduce pension payments in certain circumstances for those who return to work within local government service. If you are in receipt of a pension upon commencing employment with the authority, this may affect your pension entitlements and you should therefore seek advice from the relevant Pensions Authority.

At Barnsley Council, you can start a career that makes a real difference to people’s lives, helping our council and residents to be the best they can be. We’re an award-winning council and one of the biggest employers in the borough, supporting around 243,000 people. We put people at the heart of everything we do, and that includes our employees. As part of the team, we offer lots of benefits and rewards to support you to thrive and grow, like flexible working, employee discounts, support for your health and wellbeing, and opportunities for training and development to grow your career and develop your skills.

About the Post:

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council has made a significant and deliberate investment in children’s services. The Children in Care Sufficiency Strategy 2026-2030 is a Cabinet-approved, four-year programme designed to change how Barnsley plans for, commissions and delivers provision for children in care and children with special educational needs and disabilities. It’s funded, it’s live, and it’s already delivering. The strategy works across three pillars: reducing avoidable entry into care, stabilising placements for vulnerable adolescents, and strengthening how the Council commissions and directly provides residential and specialist care.

The five roles we’re recruiting to now are the Programme Management Office: the team that sits at the centre of all three pillars, keeps the programme on track, maintains the evidence base, and provides the governance and assurance infrastructure that makes everything else possible. If you want to be part of building something that genuinely changes outcomes for children in Barnsley, we’d like to hear from you.

This is the senior leadership role, reporting to the Service Director, Quality & Improvement of Children’s Services. You’ll be accountable for the governance, assurance, and benefits realisation of a Cabinet-approved programme backed by recurring revenue investment rising to £5.41 million per annum by Year 3 and a residential capital programme of £1.8 million. Full implementation is forecast to deliver £22.61 million of gross savings and cost avoidance by Year 3.

The programme spans three delivery pillars and includes children in care placement reform, fostering development, residential capital build, commissioning change, and SEND sufficiency infrastructure. Maintaining that evidence base is part of what this role does, and it matters.

A significant part of this role operates through influence rather than direct authority. Finance, Legal, Procurement, HR, and Assets are all corporate dependencies for this programme, and none of them report to you. Getting the right resource, at the right time, from functions with their own competing pressures requires credibility, strong relationship management and the ability to make the case for prioritisation.

You’ll lead a small team, represent the PMO at governance forums, and provide the assurance infrastructure that Cabinet, Senior Management Team and the Director of Children’s Services require. The Executive Director’s intention is that the PMO function grows over time to centralise project management resource across Children’s Services, so you’ll be shaping something with a longer-term purpose.

You’ll need extensive experience leading a PMO or complex programme in a local authority or comparable public sector organisation, with direct accountability for governance and assurance at a senior level. Experience in or alongside children’s social care, SEND or commissioning is expected. A programme or project management qualification is desirable. What’s essential is that you have the judgement, credibility and organisational standing to lead at this level.

Please use the documents below to help support you with your application form. Please ensure you view the job profile for this role, as you will need to demonstrate in your application form how you meet the required criteria.

We welcome the opportunity to have a chat about the role and are happy to address any questions you may have about flexible working arrangements, including as a result of caring responsibilities. We're committed to creating a workplace where differences are valued and everyone truly feels able to be themselves. If you have any support needs during the recruitment process, please let us know. CV's are not accepted for this role. At Barnsley Council, we believe in second chances and value diversity. Our recruitment process is inclusive, and we welcome applicants with past convictions. We're committed to fairness and do not discriminate. Join us in building a future where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.