South Yorkshire Pensions Authority – Service Manager – Programmes and Performance

Welcome, and thank you for your interest in becoming SYPA’s next Service Manager – Programmes and Performance.

We are proud of the track record that South Yorkshire Pensions Authority has achieved over a long period. As we progress, we are seeking to build on this, whilst preserving the long-term stability of our pension fund.

As we continue our journey towards excellence and look to meet the challenges ahead, I am looking forward to recruiting a Service Manager – Programmes and Performance who will help us realise our ambitions.

We will require someone who has experience and expertise in performance measurement, business intelligence and corporate strategic planning along with experience in project management at the right scale which is equally important.

Ideally, you’ll bring the skills and expertise needed to lead the development and improvement of our corporate planning and performance reporting processes and insights, as well as to lead and drive forward our programme of projects to deliver on our strategic priorities.

This is an exciting opportunity to join our small, friendly, and forward-looking Governance team in this well-respected, award-winning organisation managing a £10 billion pension fund. If you’re looking for a role involving variety and challenge, where you will lead on the co-ordination and delivery of a wide range of projects and performance management to embed continuous improvement, then this could be the role for you.

We are both a local authority and a pension fund and we’re unique within the Local Government Pension Scheme as the only democratically accountable single purpose pension organisation in the UK. As a local government body, we have a public sector ethos and place a great deal of importance on our organisational Values and Behaviours – which are all about being honest and accountable, professional, progressive, and empowering.

We are very proud that in December 2022 we won the LAPF Investment Awards LGPS Fund of the Year (Assets over £2.5 billion).

We also won the first ever Impact Investing Adopters Award (November 2021) from Pensions for Purpose and we were also re accredited by Customer Service Excellence in May 2022, having met this standard for over 20 years.

It really is an exciting time to be joining us.

We have a culture that encourages work-life balance, and we offer flexible working hours and hybrid office / home working. Our newly refurbished Barnsley office provides a state-of-the-art working environment; and with on-site parking and located within 10 minutes’ walk of both the train and bus stations, it makes us easily accessible. At SYPA we are big on your professional development, you’ll have a learning and development plan, and we’ll support you to keep your CPD updated. Perhaps most importantly you will be welcomed by talented teams.

If you are interested in joining our team and are inspired to contribute to the next phase of our journey, we look forward to your application. In the meantime, following an initial conversation with our recruitment partners at The Resourcing Solution I would be delighted to discuss this opportunity with those who might wish to learn a little more.

Take a look at our LinkedIn page to find out more about us and see what we’ve been up to recently!

Job title: Service Manager – Programmes and Performance.

Location: Barnsley with Opportunity for Hybrid Working

Contract: Full-time (37 hours per week Monday to Friday) / Permanent

Salary: £38,296 - £42,503 (pay award pending for 1 April 2023 onwards) plus benefits & relocation support

As the organisation’s lead manager for Programmes and Performance, you will be central to driving quality and the highly effective delivery of our corporate priorities.

You will be responsible for developing and implementing a new corporate performance management framework, working collaboratively with a range of teams, management colleagues, and the senior management team in order to define and measure outcomes, developing a suite of performance indicators, scorecards and dashboards for the provision of management information and reporting.

Another big part of your daily work in this rewarding role will involve embedding a newly implemented project management methodology, supporting and advising colleagues and managers from other teams to apply the relevant techniques and processes in order to ensure the successful completion of projects and realise the benefits for the organisation and our customers.

You’ll regularly be working to deadlines and will work closely with the Senior Management Team as well as managers, senior practitioners and other colleagues throughout the different services and teams across the organisation.

You will line manage the Projects and Performance Officer, role modelling and leading by example in line with our values and behaviours. The Projects and Performance Officer is a senior practitioner responsible for supporting the Service Manager in ensuring that effective project management and performance management is embedded and applied successfully.

What you'll be able to offer:

You’ll bring your expertise and experience in the analysis and reporting of performance, as well as substantial experience of managing significant and multiple projects, supported by demonstrable knowledge of project management methodologies and a relevant qualification.

Your written and oral communication and interpersonal skills will need to be excellent, demonstrating your ability to work collaboratively with and influence internal and external partners / professionals.
You will be able to evidence a highly developed range of ICT skills and experience of various software systems, including performance management systems, productivity tools such as MS Excel and so on – for the purposes of data analysis, visualisation and presentation.
Strongly committed to continuous improvement, you’ll demonstrate skills in problem-solving and use of initiative to find innovative and workable solutions.
You will also have experience of management, staff supervision, and organisational skills, and if you can demonstrate an ability to train staff, that would be an advantage.

What's in it for you:

We have a generous annual leave policy that offers between 28 days and 36 days annual leave depending on length of service, plus all statutory bank holidays and you can accrue and take up to 13 extra days leave per year by utilising Flexitime.
We have several work-life balance policies including a Flexible Working Hours policy (Flexitime) which allows you to work your contracted hours to suit both you and the team that you are working in, as well as offering hybrid working enabling you to work from home for up to 3 days per week, subject to successful progress during probationary period.
You’ll automatically be enrolled into the LGPS (Local Government Pension Scheme) which provides a salary-related pension, to which the employer contributes.
We offer a range of wellbeing initiatives including regular webinars on health & wellbeing, fresh fruit, tea, coffee, and employer provided flu vaccination vouchers each year. We also organise regular social and charity events.
We also offer a 24/7 confidential helpline, access to workplace counselling and Occupational Health.
Access to a range of benefits and discounts through the Wider Wallet scheme.
A salary of £38,296 to £42,503 (pay award pending for 1 April 2023 onwards).
Centrally located modern office for public transport links and staff on-site parking available.

Come and join us!

We are a growing public sector organisation with a team of around 110 staff who run the workplace pension scheme, managing a Fund of over £10 billion on behalf of nearly 600 employing organisations, including Local Authorities and other public / not-for-profit sector bodies.

South Yorkshire Pensions Authority is responsible for administering the Local Government Pension Scheme in South Yorkshire. The Authority was created in 1988 as part of the arrangements put in place following the abolition of South Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council. The Authority itself is made up of 12 Councillors drawn from the 4 districts in the County.

The Pensions Authority's workforce is headed by the Director and is organised around three streams of activity, each led by an Assistant Director, reflecting the focus of its work in relation to:

Scheme members
Investment of the Pension Fund's assets, and
The running of the organisation

The diagram below shows the management structure of the Authority.

The last year has been another busy year for the Authority with a number of key events:

The three yearly valuation of the Pension Fund by our new actuary Hymans Robertson which concluded that strong and consistent investment performance had delivered a surplus of assets over liabilities for the first time since at least the 1990’s. This has allowed us to provide greater long-term stability to employer contributions.
A revised investment strategy including changes designed to enable us to accelerate the rate of progress towards our investment portfolios becoming Net Zero.
The agreement of a medium-term resourcing plan designed to ensure that the Authority has sufficient staff resources to maintain a sustainable organisation and to deliver the quality-of-service members rightly expect going into the future.
Approval for the creation of a Place Based Impact Investment portfolio focussed on investment in South Yorkshire.
Improving the quality of our communication with scheme members using more modern approaches through social media and also more traditional means such as our regular newsletters.

Alongside all these important developments we are also paying attention to the corporate infrastructure with an emphasis on delivering a range of improvements to our governance and ensuring we have the resources and tools needed to deliver on the corporate strategy.

Corporate Objectives

SYPA operates to deliver a number of corporate objectives the achievement of which will allow us to deliver on our mission which is:

Making sure we deliver against the objectives below will allow us to achieve this:

Values and Behaviours

How we achieve our objectives is as important to us as what we achieve, and we operate with a framework of values and behaviours which signify the type of organisation we want to be:

Values	Behaviours
Honest and Accountable	Telling it like it is, and taking responsibility for our actions even when we have made a mistake
Progressive	Welcoming of change, while taking sensible risks and learning from our mistakes and from others
Professional	Being highly skilled and competent and managerially applying rationality to decision making processes
Empowering	Providing the freedom for individuals to identify and implement solutions to problems

In addition, if we are to live those values then our managers must demonstrate specific management behaviours as shown below:

*Management Behaviours*	*Demonstrated by:*
We model positive behaviours to each other and to all staff	We regularly offer encouragement and praise for positive behaviours We challenge inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour We give and receive authentic feedback We hold staff to account for their performance
We take responsibility for improvement - within a clear framework	We get on with making improvements and changes rather than wait for permission (within a clear advice frame that sets out what we can get on with and what we can’t). We trust people to do their job, we don’t micromanage. We give a heads up when we plan something new, we speak up early when there is a problem or when things aren’t going well. When something doesn’t go well, we look for what we can learn and what we can do differently next time.
We all get behind a common goal	We have a clear vision that sets out what our goals are and clear priorities which set out what our most important changes are. We make the time to understand what we need to do to contribute to that vision. We work together across the organisation and contribute to the organisation as a whole. We challenge and question rumours and use discretion in sharing what gets discussed amongst managers.
We involve and engage people in decisions that will affect them	We keep people in the loop about things that will affect them. We seek and value the opinion of the people we manage and of other teams. We take the time to set out plans, then listen to the concerns and recommendations of those involved as to how we can strengthen those plans. We communicate regularly and clearly to all staff.

About Barnsley, South Yorkshire

Contact us and apply now

For an informal confidential discussion about these opportunities, please contact either:

Penny Keatings on 07811 411462 or Penny.Keatings@northyorks.gov.uk

Leanne Auton on 07815 028548 or Leanne.Auton@northyorks.gov.uk

Key dates

Closing date: Midnight Tuesday 12 September 2023

Shortlisting date: Friday 15 September 2023

Please note, an Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ) will be issued to shortlisted candidates prior to interview.

Interview and presentation date: Monday 25 September (In-person at Oakwell House in Barnsley)

Apply

To apply please send your CV including a supporting statement in one Microsoft Word document to Leanne Auton at leanne.auton@northyorks.gov.uk

It is important that your CV includes: your full contact details (telephone, email, address), full employment history (name of employer, job titles, dates of employment and salary), full education history (qualification, grade, dates and place of study), explanation of any gaps in employment and the contact details of at least two referees including your current / most recent employer indicating whether you consent to us contacting each referee prior to interview. Please also provide details of your current salary and notice period.

Your supporting statement should outline your motivation for applying and how you meet the criteria for the role.

South Yorkshire Pensions Authority is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity for all staff. We welcome applications from individuals regardless of age, any disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief.

We will not accept applications from agencies.

Your Privacy

South Yorkshire Pensions Authority is committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. Please refer to the Privacy Statement which explains how we use information about you and how we protect your privacy.

South Yorkshire Pensions Authority – Service Manager – Programmes and Performance

£38,296 - £42,503 (pay award pending for 1 April 2023 onwards) plus benefits & relocation support

About the role

About the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority

Contact us and apply now