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Head of Economy and Growth

Employer
Surrey County Council
Location
Surrey
Salary
£71,252 - £80,586
Closing date
31 Jan 2021

Our story

Surrey County Council is making its most significant ever investment in supporting Surrey's economy. As the largest economy outside of London, and set against the backdrop of one of the most challenging and complex economic horizons in recent times, Surrey's new Economy Team will support the Council in its ambitions to focus on the whole Surrey economy and to provide a resilient and ambitious economic environment through unprecedented economic challenges. This work has already started with the development of Surrey's 2030 Economic Strategy which establishes a positive strategic context for growth, sets out the opportunity to both retain and secure additional investment in the county and focuses on how we will create inclusive, vibrant centres within the county through a 'hyper-local' approach to innovative place making.

The One Surrey Growth Board is also bringing forward its Plan for Growth, setting out how a focus on Surrey's economic strengths can be enabled by sustainable, long-term planning of transport and digital infrastructure as well as the creation of high-quality homes and communities of the future. Through targeted economic interventions linked to the delivery of high-quality place-based growth, Surrey will retain its role as an economic leader and continue to underpin the economic recovery of the UK. Sustained, strong partnership working is at the heart of the programme of work and our Growth Board intends to work with all stakeholders to build from the Plan for Growth bringing an appealing Growth Deal proposition to Government early in 2021. The proposition will set out how a different arrangement of resources, freedoms and flexibilities for Surrey can deliver at speed and scale against multiple Government priorities.

We are seeking a high calibre candidate to join us on this exciting and rewarding journey. If you have a track record in working in complex partnership structures, delivering on ambitious economic strategies using innovative economic interventions through an empirical approach, then we want to hear from you.

About the Role

This is a newly created role based within the Economy function at Surrey and reports to the Director of Economy. You will be accountable for developing high level skills interventions to key sectors of the future Surrey economy as well as addressing issues related to high volume unemployment, redundancies and sectoral workforce change.

You will have experience of running strategic capital programmes, leading on and delivering complex economic programmes and while you are not expected to have experience of all elements of economic structure such as digital, land, housing, you will be able to demonstrate experience in at least one.

This role will also assist the Director in in the following activities:

  • Stakeholder and locality management including key account management of anchor institutions and businesses
  • Developing strategic business cases for capital and inward investment programmes
  • Driving innovation as part of a cross-team approach to delivering outcomes
  • Supporting Surrey's new Growth Board, business leaders and SCC in delivery of their economic strategies.
  • Developing creative responses to new challenges and being innovative in programme delivery
  • Creating a shared understanding of how work contributes to health and wellbeing

About You

As a Head of Economy & Growth you will be expected to have some kind of specialism and be able to demonstrate how transferrable your skills are across the whole remit of the portfolio. We are looking for someone with commercial awareness and a commercial focus, who can thrive in a fast paced and changeable environment.

There is a cross-cutting horizontal nature to the team so we are looking for people with an understanding of national policies, statutory requirements, relevant frameworks and accountabilities in relation to economic development – including inward investment, innovation policy and delivery, strategic account management as well as familiarity with external funding streams to support such activity.

You will together with our other Head of Economy & Growth lead the delivery of our ambitious and high profile portfolio of work for Surrey, therefore we are looking for candidates who are able to present themselves positively with confidence and conviction and with the ability to inspire both respect and trust amongst colleagues, partners and peers. Other key experience/skills we are looking for include but are not limited to the following:

  • Ability to rapidly get to grips with new, emerging and complex areas of economic development policy in order to provide high quality advice to senior executives
  • Extensive, established networks of influence which can be harnessed to support the economic development on behalf of the County Council.
  • Experience of delivering complex strategy in a political setting
  • Ability to demonstrate working at scale comparable with county level

For more information please refer to the role profile attached at the bottom of this advert as well as the research piece charting-surreys-post-covid-rescue-recovery-and-growth.pdf

A structure chart of the Economy & Growth Team is also attached at the bottom of this advert which you may find useful to understand the reporting lines of the team and overall position of the role within the organisation.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Additional information

Contact details

To request an informal chat about the role with Dawn Redpath please contact Kate Northwood via email Kate.northwood@surreycc.gov.uk 

We look forward to receiving your application. 

Additional information

The job advert closes at 23:59 on Sunday 31st January 2021.

Interviews will be held virtually and are anticipated to take place W/C 1st February 2021. Details of the selection process will be shared with you if your application is successfully shortlisted but please note there may be a second stage to the selection process for this role

Please note that Surrey County Council's headquarters, where this role is currently based, will be phasing a relocation back into Surrey to support our Community Vision 2030. Agile and flexible working is welcomed and supported; we care about the job you do, not where you do it.

From flexible working to job sharing (where possible) we are committed to providing a healthy work life balance. A laptop and mobile will be supplied if applicable to your role. You will benefit from 26 days annual leave, rising to 28 days after 2 years' service, a generous local government salary related pension, as well as the option to join our car lease scheme. For more information about the wide variety of benefits you can take advantage of please visit MyBenefits for Surrey County Council staff.

Surrey County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We want to be an inclusive and diverse employer of first choice reflecting the community we serve and particularly welcome applications from all under represented groups.

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