Project Officer

Job Title: Project Officer

Department: The Project Management Office

Location: Office based - Leeds, West Yorkshire

Job status: Permanent

Hours: Part Time, 21.75 hours per week

Salary: £27,127.15 per annum full time equivalent

Closing Date: 31 May 2018

Interview Dates: 18^th & 19^th June 2018

Skills for Care has an exciting opportunity for a Project Officer to join our Project Management Office.

Who we are

Skills for Care helps create a well-led, skilled and valued adult social care workforce. Our practical support helps leaders and managers recruit, develop and lead their staff, retaining them from entry level right through to senior leadership and management roles. As a trusted independent charity with over 18 years’ experience in workforce development, we help you to get the best from your most valuable resource - your people.

Our local area teams provide information on our tools, offer tailored support and can put you in touch with local networks, initiatives and opportunities. Find out more by taking a look at our website www.skillsforcare.org.uk.

The team

As an integral component in Skills for Care, the Project Management Office (PMO) provides effective, tailored, and seamless support to project teams to ensure the deliverables within the business plan are achieved. PMO offers a variety of support:

• We contribute to the delivery of projects throughout the lifecycle– from conception to evaluation.

• We support effective project planning through championing continuous improvement and coordinating the involvement of key individuals across the organisation.

• We set up plans using our bespoke project planning system and work with project leads to populate them, using them initially to plan what we are going to do and then ensuring they are kept up to date so we always have an accurate record of project progress.

• We routinely prepare performance and risk management reports for various boards within the Department of Health and Social Care as well as our own Skills for Care Board and committees

• We coordinate and manage the whole business planning process from start to finish

• We manage the Apprenticeship Certification England (ACE) system and a dedicated team within PMO verifies claims for completion certificates for Adult Social Care and Children and Young People's Frameworks.

These are the fundamentals of the PMO offer, but we also:

• Make recommendations for streamlining processes and manage their implementation

• Facilitate lessons learned sessions and share best practice

• Manage developments and improvements on our project planning system

• Identify links between projects and help to ensure they join up (and avoid duplication of effort!)

• Provide clarity to the business and project planning cycle

We achieve all of this by working closely with project teams and other central teams to support clear internal communication. We are often the link between project teams and central teams ensuring structure, consistency and clarity is maintained. This is an area we particularly excel in and is key to the successful delivery of Skills for Care's work.

The role

The Project Officer role is often the link between Project Managers (many of whom are home based) and the rest of the organisation and plays a vital role in ensuring that projects are planned, communicated and delivered successfully. The post holder will support the successful delivery of a range of projects by providing professional project and administrative support to Project Managers and Programme Heads to ensure the deliverables within the business plan are achieved. This will include supporting the production and monitoring of project plans that are consistent and well communicated; having well defined goals and timescales and well managed risks and issues. The role also involves supporting project managers with financial forecasting as well as supporting meetings and events, which may involve some travel.

Requirements of the role

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate experience of working in a similar role and provide examples to evidence effective organisational and communication skills. Attention to detail as well as the ability to see the bigger picture is vital, as project officers are in the best place to highlight cross-cutting themes and make recommendations about efficient cross-organisational working. The role also requires strong negotiation and influencing skills and the ability to build relationships quickly with the project team members they are supporting as well as a range of partners from across the social care sector.

If you are interested in this role please visit the website for the full job description and details on how to apply. Please note that previous candidates need not apply.

Please note that Skills for Care does not accept CVs.