Head Of Service - Property & Assets

This is a Full Time, Permanent position. This is a rare opportunity to lead one of the region’s most diverse and strategically important property portfolios at Hull City Council. As Head of Estates, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of the city’s land and property assets, driving investment, regeneration, income growth and public value.

Working at the heart of the Property and Assets Service, you will influence major decisions, lead a high-performing team, and help deliver transformative outcomes for Hull’s residents, businesses and communities.

ROLE AND PURPOSE

The post holder is the Head of Service and professional lead for the management of the Council’s commercial land and property portfolio, managed workspace centres and development sites. They are responsible for the wide range of professional services delivery in respect of land and property, and all associated business reporting, legislative compliance, resourcing, and programme management that relate to the Council’s commercial property portfolio together with defined responsibilities that are required for the role.

The postholder is responsible for the professional teams that deliver the services across the role which includes all professionals and management functions, and provide a comprehensive and effective service to enable it to efficiently and effectively manage a commercial portfolio of land and property, and a property asset disposals programme, and 3 managed workspace centres in line with targets in the Council’s medium term financial plan, and promoting the decarbonisation and enhancing the biodiversity of the Council’s commercial land and property portfolio.

The postholder will also be responsible for managing the team that delivers major investment projects in partnership with anchor institutions and investors including Yorkshire Energy Park Freeport site and the MKM Stadium/Hull City and with the voluntary and community sector in relation to community asset transfers and strategic land asset purchases.

The postholder will influence and derive maximum outcomes from policy and to ensure the service adds value to the regeneration, economic development, operation, and environment, of the City through effective and efficient delivery of strategic land and property advice and interventions.

To deputise for the Director/Assistant Director of the service.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

• Strategy – Leads on the development and implementation of strategic plans across operational portfolios, property advice, professional estates, portfolio management and asset management services, valuation and property consultancy and statutory obligations in relation to the Council’s commercial portfolio, managed workspace centres and development land. Ensures a co-ordinated management function through the integrated operation of the service, considering income, expenditure, and value of land and property assets, service and budgetary planning. The post holder has full autonomy for the high-level of delegation of decision making on land and property assets and related matters and associated expenditure, and strategic decisions relating to service operations, technical and professional matters. Provide strategic direction, prioritisation of actions, target setting and evaluation of outputs/outcomes with respect to policy and strategic frameworks and programmes. Provides leadership and support to managers and staff and develops and maintains good employee relations through effective communication, consultation, application of personnel policies and development of good practice, ensuring roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and understood. Provides a leading role for professional teams setting policy and practice to ensure a coordinated and integrated function and producing a Service Delivery Plan which includes SMART objectives. Lead or contribute to multidisciplinary project teams delivering infrastructure aligned with corporate vision and priorities.
• Customer Focus - Strong engagement with the property sector across the city to ensure delivery of programmes of work and significant projects in a timely manner whilst balancing environmental, social and community aspirations. Highly visible in the Council’s domain, speaking about land and property matters in Hull. Leads the formulation of strategic property portfolio planning and management and the development and review of the Council’s Corporate Land and Property Strategy. Develops, reviews and provides best practice in customer service delivery; is proactive in engaging with customers and stakeholders to ensure the service meets their needs. Holds regular briefings with Senior Officers and Councillors of Hull City Council and presents subject expert reports and advice, as needed.
• Performance Management - Develops, reviews and manages a performance management framework to ensure effectiveness, to monitor and evaluate service delivery and to demonstrate outcomes and continual improvements. Ensures that resources available to deliver objectives are effectively managed including facilitating external resourcing as needed. Is an active member of the Property and Assets service area, raising all matters of significance from the service and feeding back key messages corporately to the staff. Leads on the Associate Professional Leads managerial team meetings and presents to the whole service on performance and budgetary matters. Closely manages expenditure targets and continually reviews opportunities to manage value for money and make savings where opportune. Responsible for the ultimate sign off of the service related business reporting and all business matters. Secures external funding to ensure delivery of projects where possible. Authorisation of all expenditure within the service and manages this expenditure in accordance with budgets. This post carries a very high degree of autonomy and consequently accountability, with regard to decision making. The postholder is frequently required to make important decisions in relation to contractual lease, disposal and development, and the negotiations leading up to contractual agreements to protect the Council’s and business partners’ interests. Responsible on own authority for spending within set budget and ensures the continual review of service delivery, implementing Council policy and practice and researching and developing improvements using national best practice. Carries out long term planning of budgets, staffing and work programmes for the effective delivery of services to meet Hull City Council and Government targets, including a Service Delivery Plan and ensures managers produce team service delivery plans for their areas.
• Leadership – This role is part of the senior management team and provides building and design related professional advice to the Chief Executive, Councillors and senior executive staff as needed. Provides the main source of leadership to Associate Professional Leads and Managers in professional competence; implements Council’s policy on human resources and equalities and develops continual improvement in service delivery. The role is responsible for ensuring teams produce work programmes and that the work is focused on corporate aims and objectives and that deadlines are met. The post holder deputises for the Director/Assistant Director and also stands in for other senior management staff as needed.
• Statutory Obligations - Responsible for ensuring the Legal, Health and Safety and Statutory Compliance requirements of Hull City Council within the Building and Design services are fully met.
• Emergency Management and Response - In fulfilment of its statutory requirements under the Civil Contingencies Act, the Council operates an out of hours emergency response rota of which this post is part. The post holder will be required to assist in any emergency situations when an incident is declared.

Benefits of Working of Hull City Council:

• A competitive salary
• An excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• Initially 23 days annual leave depending on length of service. You will also get eight public holidays per year, and three additional days off, one in May/August and one during the Christmas/New year period
• Career development and learning experiences from a range of training courses and learning methods
• Supportive and forward-thinking culture
• Great career development opportunities

We are committed to increasing the diversity, equality, and inclusion within our workforce to represent the people we serve and build an environment in which everyone can feel like they belong. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.

We adopt a ‘name blind’ approach to shortlisting. Recruiting managers will not have access to personal information, including your name and contact details, until a shortlisting decision has been made. Equality monitoring information is not accessible by recruiting managers at any stage.

We reserve the right to amend the dates associated with this advert, which may include closing the advert early where required. The Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.