School Place Planning Manager in Chelmsford

The School Place Planning Manager will lead and develop the Council's school place planning team as it fulfils its critical role in planning for school place sufficiency across Essex. You will be responsible for ensuring high quality data and forecasts are available to the School Organisation & Place Planning service as well as updating a suite of publicly available documents that are central to quantifying and communicating anticipated demand for school places. This includes statutory returns to the Department for Education which underpin our forecasts and capital grants. You will have responsibility for developing and defining education infrastructure requirements, including land and developer contributions required to support new housing across Essex in a sustainable way, ensuring the Council is able to meet its statutory obligation to provide sufficient school places.

Service/Functional Accountabilities

• Lead on defining mainstream education infrastructure requirements across the county, to influence and support planning and investment decisions, supporting corporate aims.
• Acts as the Service's member on appropriate boards and groups pertaining to the delivery of education infrastructure in response to housing growth.
• Responsible for judging the impact of new housing plans on mainstream schools and, in partnership with the relevant planning authority and colleagues, securing appropriate land for new schools and financial contributions from developers (s106 agreements).
• Support other education functions in this work, particularly SEND ensuring that education requirements are strategic and aligned.
• Review the use of s106 monies within the Schools' Capital Programme to ensure the efficient use of financial resources in line with the legal obligations on ECC.
• Build collaborative working relationships with the Education service, housing authorities and government departments, to provide expert advice with respect to education infrastructure requirements, pupil place planning and Local Plans.
• Deliver detailed evidence as an expert witness on education policy and practice issues at Public Inquiries, Examinations in Public and other formal hearings.
• Liaising with planning colleagues, solicitors and Counsel.
• Responsible for scoping, developing, commissioning, processing and management of key intelligence, data and forecasts to ensure the provision of a robust evidence base for school organisation and place planning decisions, and to inform strategic decisions across a range of education services.
• Responsible for developing and managing the statutory Department for Education school capacity (SCAP) return cycle which informs the annual grant of 'Basic Need' capital funding to ECC.
• Manage the School Place Planning Team to deliver complex data products using Geographical Information Systems; Relational Databases and other analysis tools.
• Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

Organisational Accountabilities

• Operational planning and performance review to maintain exceptional service delivery and ensures the political objectives and priorities of the council are met.
• Working collaboratively across the council and thinking commercially, to support the delivery of best possible outcomes for our customers on a financially sustainable basis.
• Maintaining and nurturing collaborative relationships for the function with external organisations, that support the delivery of annual plans.
• Implementing changes and continually evaluating service to improve the area of work, while maintaining the highest possible levels of service quality are continually delivered.
• Managing complex issues and resources to meet the needs of customers and deliver the best possible outcomes.
• Effective utilisation of digital technologies and innovation across the function.
• Using professional expertise to translate goals and plans into ways of working that comply with relevant legislation and statutory requirements and manages a level of appropriate risk.
• Deliver exemplar customer interactions to individuals and communities which support strong relationships and a reputation for achieving outcomes and resolving issues.

The Experience You Will Bring

• Educated to RQF level 6 (Bachelor's degree) or equivalent experience on planning or statistical analysis.
• Evidence of continuing professional development and expert knowledge in relevant professional area.
• Significant experience of forecasting, infrastructure planning and data analysis within the public sector, making comparisons against other local authorities and effective interpretation and evaluation.
• Understanding of District Council Local Plans and housing trajectories to inform responses to consultations in relation to educational requirements.
• Knowledge and understanding of school accommodation to inform net capacity information and site analysis for education requirements.
• A knowledge and understanding of education provision, admissions legislation and school organisation.
• Ability to develop strong working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders to ensure a quality service is provided.
• Understanding of systems analysis techniques and analytical tools used in forecasting and data management.

Please note that the job role requires you to be mobile throughout an operational area. Therefore, the post holder will need to have a driving licence and access to a vehicle, or the ability to meet the mobility requirements of the role through other means.

Employee Benefits

• Support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.

Disability and Equal Opportunity

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We are committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process. We are also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

Application Requirements

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC) should your role require a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained. For further information on the DBS update service please go to https://www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service. If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk.