Head of Programme Delivery - Local Government Reorganisation
Head of Programme Delivery - Local Government Reorganisation - Paying between £700 to £800 Per Day, Inside IR35, Based in Oxford, Hybrid Working, 6 Month Contract, To Start ASAP Your new company
Step into a critical leadership role within a large, upper-tier local authority undergoing one of the most ambitious and complex transformation agendas in the sector. At the centre of this sits a major Local Government Reorganisation programme, reshaping how services are structured, delivered and governed across the system. This is an organisation operating at pace, tackling large-scale change across multiple service areas and partner organisations. With significant political visibility and high expectations for delivery, there is a clear need for strong, experienced leadership to translate ambition into outcomes. As a result, the council is seeking an exceptional Head of Programme Delivery to take ownership of key programme areas and drive execution across a highly complex landscape. Local Government experience is a strict prerequisite for this role.
Your new role
This is not a passive programme role. This is a hands-on delivery leadership position responsible for driving progress across some of the most complex and high-risk areas of the transformation.
You will take full ownership of priority programme areas, ensuring that high-level strategy is translated into structured, executable delivery plans that achieve real outcomes. You will define and manage milestones, critical paths and sequencing across multiple workstreams, ensuring that progress is understood, controlled and maintained. A central part of the role will be moving the programme from discussion into action. You will bring pace, structure and accountability, ensuring that outputs progress from workshops and planning sessions into clear decisions and implementable actions. Working closely with Programme Directors and SROs, you will translate intent into delivery reality, establishing the architecture required to deliver successfully. You will play a key role in holding workstream leads to account, ensuring delivery outputs are met and dependencies are actively managed. In a complex system spanning services, data, workforce, assets and technology, you will coordinate activity across verticals and horizontals, ensuring alignment and resolving cross-cutting issues before they impact progress. Risk management will be a core focus, identifying pinch points, capacity gaps and delivery risks early, and leading mitigation strategies to maintain momentum. You will also play a critical role in shaping senior decision-making, presenting clear options, trade-offs and recommendations to Programme Board, ensuring decisions are grounded in evidence and delivery reality. Ultimately, this role is about driving a delivery-first culture, ensuring the programme moves at pace while maintaining a firm focus on safe and legally compliant Day 1 outcomes, alongside enabling longer-term transformation.
What you'll need to succeed
You will bring extensive experience leading complex, cross-organisational programmes within local government or similarly regulated environments. You will have a proven ability to translate strategy into delivery, managing multiple workstreams and navigating significant complexity and interdependencies. You will be confident operating at senior levels, with the ability to challenge, influence and hold stakeholders to account. Strong programme management capability is essential, particularly across delivery planning, governance, risk and performance management. You will be highly organised and outcome-focused, with a track record of driving pace and maintaining control in demanding environments. Your ability to identify risks early, provide clarity in ambiguity and turn complex challenges into structured delivery plans will be key to success. Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills are critical, enabling you to align diverse teams, simplify complexity and support effective decision-making at Programme Board level.
What you'll get in return
This role places you at the centre of one of the most significant transformation programmes in the region. You will have direct influence over delivery outcomes, exposure to senior leadership and the opportunity to shape how a large local authority executes complex change. Alongside a competitive day rate, you will be part of a fast-paced, high-impact environment with strong potential for contract extension.
What you need to do now
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