Digital

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Making our strategy real 

In December we published our first digital strategy at the Royal Borough of Greenwich; you can read the strategy on our website and the accompanying blog post on our Digital blog. The strategy represents our ambitions for the digital future of the council and the borough - for digital, data and technology to change the lives of our residents, our staff, our businesses and our visitors.  

We’re proud of the strategy, but of course it’s just words. What will make it happen is people. We’re currently a small team, whose skills set mainly lies in technology and infrastructure. We’re going to more than double the team size over the next 2 years, adding digital and data skills and completely changing how we work within the council and outside. 

It’s very ambitious, but it’s both realistic and necessary. 

We’re starting by hiring our senior leadership team. These are the people who will lead our journey from strategy to delivery. If you’re reading this and think you may want to apply for roles other than these, please keep an eye out – this is just the beginning. 

Who we’re hiring first 

We’re hiring four heads of service: Delivery, Data, Product, and Technology. 

Head of Technology 

Our Head of Technology will set technology strategy; lead our move to cloud infrastructure; build architectural patterns that allow us to quickly build modern, secure services; and lead our internal technology service delivery. In their remit is: 

• infrastructure, hosting and core platforms 

• software development, including professional development of our software developers 

• application support 

• mobile and device support 

• service desk 

• technical architecture  

• cyber security 

As well as this, they will lead the largest of the four new functions – hiring a great new diverse team, setting good standards and practice, and developing their own line reports. They will develop visions for different aspects of our technology transformation, bring our whole legacy system into the modern day and build an ecosystem and tools we can all be proud of. 

Read the Head of Technology job description and apply

Head of Product  

This person will need to build a new in-house product function from scratch – none of the planned roles exist in our team at the moment. As well as hiring a new team, they’ll need to set standards for product management and make sure standards are set for the other disciplines, as well as building professional communities for the disciplines for which they’re responsible.  

They will work across the council to champion product thinking, defining a series of product strategies and roadmaps in partnerships with senior leaders in the council. They’ll need to be an ambassador for agile ways of working and user-centred design, and will act as the voice of the user across the council. 

The Head of Product is responsible for the following disciplines: 

• product management 

• product design 

• user research 

• business analysis 

• content design 

• service design 

Read the Head of Product job description and apply

Head of Delivery 

This role is responsible for running all of our directorate’s corporate functions. Their responsibilities cover: 

• budget setting and management 

• procurement and commercial relationships 

• contract management 

• governance and portfolio management 

• strategic planning 

• recruitment  

• leading the council into agile ways of working 

This is a hugely wide-ranging role. The council has not yet started to work in agile ways, and this role will lead this cultural movement, so we need someone with a great deal of experience as well as pragmatism in how agile methods can be used. And, given the corporate responsibility of the role, applicants should have experience of financial and portfolio management too – they’ll be working across the council to negotiate budgets, plans and delivery. 

Read the Head of Delivery job description and apply

Head of Data 

Data is a huge opportunity for the council and the borough – this role has real potential to shape our plans for data. We already know that we want to make strides across the full range of data activities, from improving our corporate data, to building data skills, opening up our performance, building service analytics, and much more. We’re looking for the right person to help us shape those plans and make them real. The role will be responsible for: 

• data architecture and strategy 

• data science 

• data engineering 

• data analysis and analytics 

• reporting and business intelligence 

The person will also need to build a data community across the range of skills for which they’re responsible, as well as acting as an ambassador across the council for the potential that data has. We’re looking for someone who’s comfortable working with very senior stakeholders and who is able to develop ambitious plans for how data could help the council to modernise. 

Read the Head of Data job description and apply

The type of people we’re looking for  

We’re looking for highly experienced digital and technology professionals, with a range of experience in the industry over a number of years. Having worked in the public sector before is a 'nice to have', but not essential. 

We’re also seeking people who care deeply about building great teams, and who want to see others succeed. The successful candidates will need to be committed to public service and to meeting resident and staff need. They’ll need to be able to work across all levels of seniority and discipline in the council, as well as with suppliers, partners and other parts of the public sector. 

They will need to believe in building an inclusive culture, in taking our work seriously but ourselves less so, and in being generous with their time and skills. 

We actively encourage applications from under-represented groups and from people who need some flexibility in their role due to parenting or caring arrangements. Because of the responsibility of these roles, the minimum time commitment would need to be 30 hours per week.  

What it’s like to work at Royal Greenwich 

Royal Greenwich is awe-inspiring in its commitment to residents and to service delivery. We’ve got open and visible leadership in Danny Thorpe (@DanLThorpe) and Debbie Warren, and a workforce of people who will do whatever it takes to help people. 

Local government is by its nature closer and more accountable to those it serves than central government; our council offers around 250 services to our residents, businesses and visitors, covering everything from bin collection to essential healthcare, education and community services.  

In the last year, our team worked on services to: 

• connect people to our community hub so that families could be fed 

• enable rapid COVID-19 testing 

• get devices to digitally excluded families 

• put our council tax services online 

• let people safely dispose of household waste 

And that’s on top of the internal services we offer to our 4,000 staff, to which we’re just as committed as our borough-facing services. 

Our team’s culture is all about openness and positivity. It’s a team where you can always rely on each other, and where service delivery is the mission that everyone gathers around.  

We’re absolutely committed to building a diverse team; as a queer woman in tech, that’s something I’m passionate about, and I’m focused also on having a team which is representative in terms of race, disability, and neurodivergence. We want a team with a wide range of backgrounds, approaches and characteristics, with the hope of being better able to represent those we serve. 

Want to know more? 

If you’re interested in one of these roles, please get in touch. My DMs are open on Twitter (@kitterati), and you can also email me directly at kit.collingwood@royalgreenwich.gov.uk if you want to know more. I won’t respond to any recruiters. 

I’ve also booked some slots in my diary next week on 8, 9, 10 and 11 February to have informal chats with anyone who wants to know more - find a slot that works for you.