Are you an exceptional leader with a passion for shaping and delivering strategic priorities? We are looking for a Head of Strategy for this new position, pivotal in influencing government policy and shaping the future of Dorset Council. As the Head of Strategy, you will support our political and corporate leadership in achieving the council's ambitious plans. You will play a crucial role in developing corporate policies, performance, and risk frameworks while positioning Dorset nationally. Dorset Council is committed to delivering cost-effective, high-quality services to our residents. We value innovative approaches, strong leadership, and collaborative working to achieve our strategic goals. As the Head of Strategy, you will be at the forefront of driving these initiatives, ensuring that our council continues to excel and meet the needs of our community. You will: elevate our strategy and policy functions, driving high performance and culture change to ensure cost-effective, high-quality services. You will provide expert strategic advice to senior leadership, influencing key decisions and long-term strategic courses of action. lead and manage a team of professionals, developing and implementing corporate strategy, policy, and performance frameworks. You'll foster a forward-thinking strategy function that aligns with the council plan and policy framework, setting clear aims based on residents' needs and political vision. work closely with senior management, elected members, and key stakeholders to deliver the council’s strategic priorities and meet financial targets. You'll build and maintain influential relationships, ensuring Dorset's voice is heard locally, regionally, and nationally. engage directly with government and policy at national levels, developing the council's influence with MPs, government departments, and strategic partners. You'll shape and deliver the political priorities of Dorset Council, impacting both internal operations and external partnerships. plan and develop a performance management, risk and accountability framework, ensuring effective performance improvement mechanisms. Promote and support innovative approaches to achieving council and service aims through business plans and strategies. develop the strategic use of insight and data to drive better decision making and support the transformation required to support the council on its change journey. What’s in it for you: This is a unique opportunity to establish and shape a brand-new role within the council, making a significant impact on our future direction. As a key player in shaping the future direction of Dorset Council's strategy and policy functions, you will lead a talented team and drive organisational culture change to achieve high performance and excellent service delivery. Providing proactive strategic advice to the Senior Leadership Team, you will present options and rationales for strategic actions, ensuring informed and effective decision-making. Working closely with senior management, elected members, and key stakeholders, you will strive to achieve strategic objectives and financial targets. Your role will also involve ensuring that Dorset is strongly positioned nationally by developing and maintaining influential relationships with key stakeholders. This is a chance to make a significant contribution to the council's strategic direction, and impact future success. About you: You will have extensive operational and professional knowledge in a major service area, proven project and budget management, staff supervision, and partnership working. You will be able to think innovatively and have experience in strategic planning, high-level communication skills, ability to work collaboratively, and strong leadership qualities. Further Information To arrange an informal conversation with Steven Ford, Corporate Director for Strategy, Performance and Sustainability, please contact his PA, Jen Prince on [email protected] Dorset Council is ambitious. We want to provide the very best services to the residents of Dorset, while also ensuring that Dorset is positioned both regionally and nationally as a leader of place. We have been on a journey since becoming a unitary authority in 2019, and we are now seeking to continue this development through the creation of a stronger strategic core that can help drive the continued improvement, performance, strategy and place leadership that is increasingly important in the ever-changing world of local government. As part of this commitment, we are developing a new strategy service that will be at the heart of our organisation, driving performance, risk management, accountability and strategic intent throughout the organisation. This service will derive insight from data, helping to improve decision-making and support the transformation work required to ensure that Dorset Council adapts to the changing world around it and continues to deliver the best possible services to the residents of Dorset. We are looking for a range of roles, including corporate performance, technical analyst, senior policy officers and a head of strategy. These roles will fit within a wider service that has recently been refocused to drive greater strategic capacity and will be a pivotal service in delivering the priorities of the council. This post requires you to have access to sensitive information. It will be subject to a Basic Criminal Records Check. See our policy on the employment of ex-offenders. This post requires significant travel. You must have a vehicle (or transport we deem suitable) available for use as needed. Please note that this is a politically restricted position. About Us We’re passionate about making Dorset a great place to live, work and visit. Working for us should be no exception. At Dorset Council we: provide more than 450 services to over 300,000 residents have ambitious aspirations are excited about our future care about Dorset and all the people who live here know that all roles make a difference and that our employees are key to our success You will: have access to a range of employee benefits be part of an organisation that supports each other to grow and succeed have access to range of training opportunities which will help with your personal development and career progression We are challenging ourselves to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation. We recognise that recruitment and inclusion of individuals with diverse skills, perspectives and backgrounds will bring real strength to the council and our communities. We have a commitment to equality and welcome applications from everyone. We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We offer an interview to everyone who declares a disability and meets the essential criteria for the role. We are keen to make our interviews accessible. Let us know on your job application if you have a disability and need any reasonable adjustments. We also look for applicants who share our commitment to our behaviours. We will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process. If appointed, the personal information we collect from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected, you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found at https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn. This role is UK based and we will need to establish your Right to Work as part of the appointment process. We use generic job descriptions and person specifications. This means the job title on any attachments may differ from the job title in the advert. We may provide specific information in a context statement if relevant. Find out more about how to apply .