Strategic Programme Manager - TOM and Service Design

Client: London Borough of Brent

Salary: £66,378 per annum

Location: Hybrid, with an expectation of three days per week on-site at HA9 0FJ

Contract: Permanent

Panoramic Associates are delighted to be supporting the London Borough of Brent with the appointment of a permanent Strategic Programme Manager - Target Operating Model and Service Design. This role reflects one of the most important pieces of work now facing the organisation. Brent is progressing through a corporate Target Operating Model design phase, moving from design principles into the practical work of shaping structures, ways of working and service-by-service delivery models.

The Council is looking for a programme leader who can help move this work from concept into delivery and ensure that the design is translated into optimised services that work for residents, staff and the organisation as a whole. This is a rare opportunity to influence how a major London borough organises itself for the future. The successful candidate will sit within the Corporate Programme Management Office and work closely with senior leaders across the Council, acting as a bridge between corporate design, service design, organisational change and delivery.

The opportunity

As Strategic Programme Manager - Target Operating Model and Service Design, you will play a central role in helping Brent move from high-level TOM principles into practical implementation. Once the organisational design principles are agreed, the Council will need to work service by service to understand current operating models, identify opportunities for optimisation and design future services that are efficient, accessible, resilient and aligned to Brent's wider priorities.

This role will require a combination of strategic programme management and service design capability. Brent is looking for someone who can bring structure to a complex organisation-wide programme, while also understanding how services are experienced by residents and delivered by staff. You will need to be comfortable working at different levels of detail: from senior governance conversations about corporate design and prioritisation, through to practical workshops that map service journeys, identify pain points and define future ways of working.

What you will be doing

You will provide hands-on leadership for the Target Operating Model and service design programme, ensuring that the work is clearly scoped, well governed and connected to the wider Embrace Change portfolio. You will support senior leaders to move from design principles into deliverable plans, helping define outcomes, milestones, risks, dependencies, benefits and decision points.

A core part of the role will be to support service-by-service design. This will involve working with directorates and service leaders to understand current arrangements, test assumptions, identify duplication or fragmentation, and design improved operating models. You will help ensure that new service models are not just theoretically sound, but deliverable, measurable and aligned to the Council's financial sustainability requirements.

You will also contribute to the development of new ways of working across the organisation. This may include supporting organisational design, process improvement, governance alignment, role clarity, demand and capacity thinking, resident journey redesign and the practical transition from current state to future state. The role will require strong facilitation, analytical thinking and the ability to create momentum in areas where the answer is not yet fully defined.

What we are looking for

Brent is seeking a strategic programme leader with strong experience of Target Operating Model design, organisational design, service design or complex operating model transformation. You may have worked in local government, wider public services, consulting, transformation or a similarly complex environment, but you will need to understand how to deliver change in organisations with multiple stakeholders, competing priorities and high levels of public accountability.

You will bring strong programme management foundations, including experience of governance, delivery planning, benefits realisation, risk and dependency management, reporting and senior stakeholder engagement. Programme or project management certification such as PRINCE2, MSP or Agile would be useful, but Brent will be particularly interested in candidates who can combine delivery rigour with design thinking.

The ideal candidate will be confident facilitating workshops, shaping ambiguous problems, translating principles into practical options and helping services move from current state to future state. You will be credible with senior leaders, collaborative with operational teams and able to challenge constructively where design choices need to be clearer, more ambitious or more deliverable.

Why Brent?

Brent is growing a strategic change delivery function with the capability to support corporate priorities, directorate transformation and cross-cutting programmes in a more joined-up way. This TOM and service design role sits at the heart of that ambition. It offers the chance to help shape not only what the Council delivers, but how it is organised to deliver in the future.

This is a role for someone who enjoys complexity, can work across organisational boundaries and wants to make change feel practical, inclusive and deliverable. You will be joining a council that values proactive collaboration, inclusive leadership, curiosity, boldness and shared success, and you will have the opportunity to influence a programme with long-term significance for residents and staff.

To discuss the role in confidence, please click apply or contact Rebecca Martin or Harrison Russ at Panoramic Associates.