The Bank of England is the UK's central bank. Our mission is to deliver monetary and financial stability for the British people.

The Bank of England is a diverse organisation. Each of its people are committed to public service and dedicated to promoting the good of the people of the United Kingdom by maintaining monetary and financial stability.

Central Services 2025 is an ambitious three-year change programme led by the Bank’s Chief Operating Officer, Ben Stimson and overseen by the Bank’s Governor, Andrew Bailey and Chair of Court, David Roberts.

The programme will unlock the professionalism of our central functions to better enable the mission of the Bank and improve everyone’s experience of Central Services. Following a detailed design phase which culminated in Court approval, we are now underway with implementation. The implementation phase is delivered by an in-house Central Services 2025 delivery team comprising a mix of skills and experience. The Programme now needs an experience change and transformation leader to drive delivery of the programme outcomes.

By 2025, this will deliver:

• Stable and future-proofed services, such as the Bank’s technology estate, as well as longer term property and people strategies (including reward, talent and diversity and inclusion).
• Investment in talent which ensures that we continually evolve our skills and build the capabilities we need for the future.
• A professional advisory culture, where Central Services experts work in close partnership with the rest of the Bank.
• Value for money, with operations which are as efficient as possible and focussed on the most critical activities.
• Collective leadership which drives cross-Bank collaboration.

The role holder will provide strategic direction to this diverse and varied programme. They will be accountable for the following work streams:

Operating Model design for People, Technology, Operations and Change & Planning directorates to:

• Design the right structure, skills, policies, processes and engagement approach with local areas;
• Pivot our support to an advisory approach where local areas are empowered to take more decisions;
• Ensure our service desks are achieving what is needed and exploring where we can go further

Creation of a new Change & Planning directorate:

• Implementation of new Change & Planning function in collaboration with key stakeholders such as the Chief Financial Officer, DGs, Chief Information Officer, local COOs, DG CIOs, and Finance Business Partners;
• Gap analysis of existing Change reviews to ensure new directorate will achieve the requirements;
• Extensive engagement with the Bank Executive to ensure the new model is understood and adopted

Creation of a new Central Operations directorate:

• Creating new divisions as well as merging existing teams;
• Extensive engagement with Bank Executive to ensure new directorate will achieve requirements;
• Working with the Central Services Executive team, support the implementation of Internal Audit findings
• Supporting the appointment of the senior leadership team

Deliver process improvements:

• Lead a pilot team tasked with pioneering new policies and processes in advance of a wider roll out across Central Services
• Devising and implementing new approaches to how we do things, for example, on disciplinary or working from abroad;

Drive value for money

• Developing a cost savings approach to ensure the programme embeds value for money and efficiencies
• Identifying financial quick win savings and work with the Executive team to implement them
• Working with the Central Services leadership team to deliver agreed longer term savings

Improve data and Knowledge management:

• Review how data, information and knowledge is captured, stored, governed and shared within Central Services to better serve the Bank
• Work with stakeholders within Data and Analytics Transformation and Technology functions to ensure plans are delivered in line with broader data and tech strategy
• Working with our Chief Information Officer to deliver our technology transformation programme of work

The role holder will have responsibility for leading the CS2025 programme to implement these workstreams. This will include identifying and implementing quick wins, as well as longer-term deliverables, such as the design of a new operating model for Central Services, establishing innovative policies and processes, and finding the right balance of accountabilities between Central Services and local areas.

Role specifics

We are recruiting a Lead for the Programme. The role holder will have overall responsibility for setting the strategic direction and delivery of the Central Services 2025 Programme, which was approved by Court of Directors in September 2022. The role holder will be accountable for ensuring all aspects of the programme are delivered on schedule and are aligned to stakeholder requirements. They will work closely with the Bank’s Chief Operating Officer, Ben Stimson, and will be responsible for reporting the overall progress of the Programme up through the Bank’s Executive and to Court.

The role holder will have direct line management responsibility for the senior managers leading the individual workstreams (with the caveat that the team will be agile and adapt to changing priorities/requirements) and for the central project management office. They will be responsible for ensuring the ongoing career development of the team and embedding the Bank’s behaviours throughout the programme’s culture. This is a complex and varied programme, and the role holder will need to provide strategic leadership, not just within the programme but right across the diverse colleagues that make up Central Services.

The role provides an exciting opportunity to influence the future of the Bank’s central operational functions and the role holder will be expected to present to, and manage relationships with Court members, Governors and Executive Directors.

Director of Programme – role highlights

• Provide strategic leadership to a critical multi-year programme to support Central Services to deliver a professional service at the heart of the Bank.
• Use strategic thinking and a willingness to challenge the status quo to set the direction for the programme, engaging directly with the Bank’s Chief Operating Officer and Executive Directors to ensure stakeholder are aligned and invested in the successful outcome of the programme.
• Leading the development of innovative solutions, identifying new and more effective ways to do things and then implementing those changes.
• An experienced people manager, who values diversity, equity and inclusion and has previously developed high-performing teams – this is a people management role.
• Sound judgment, including on when to escalate issues and the ability to pre-emptively identify and mitigate potential risk. Deliver effective outputs that are realistic and subject to rigorous analysis and external advice.

Essential criteria:

• Experience of delivering complex operational change
• Strong leadership skills - provide strategic direction, challenging the status quo and motivating delivery teams with a mix of skills and scales. Someone willing to take personal responsibility for the delivery of complex, organisation-wide projects.
• Problem solving and prioritisation - The ability to untangle complex inter-related issues and juggle a number of responsibilities in order to plan work and allocate resources effectively.
• A strong communicator - experience engaging with large groups, building enthusiasm and buy-in for change, and building collaborative relationships across a wide range of stakeholders.
• Collaborative and inclusive - excellent stakeholder management skills, able to maintain a culture of trust between different business areas throughout the change period. Strong experience of managing senior stakeholders through a complex change process.
• Attention to detail - our work will impact real people so it is critical we are rigorous in our approach – outputs are frequently presented to the Bank Executive team and Court.
• An ability to be flexible and adaptable to changing circumstance.
• Have discretion in handling staff sensitive data.

Our Approach to Inclusion

The Bank values diversity, equity and inclusion. We play a key role in maintaining monetary and financial stability, and to do that effectively, we believe we need a workforce that reflects the society we serve.

At the Bank of England we want all colleagues to feel valued and respected, so we're working hard to build an inclusive culture which supports people from all backgrounds and communities to be at their best at work. We celebrate all forms of diversity, including (but not limited to) age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. We believe that it’s by drawing on different perspectives and experiences that we’ll continue to make the best decisions for the public.

We welcome applications from individuals who work flexibly, including job shares and part time working patterns. We've also partnered with external organisations to support us in making adjustments for candidates and employees in the recruitment process where they're needed.

For most roles where work can be carried out at home, we aim for colleagues to spend half of their time in the office, with a minimum of 40% per month. Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them, their team and stakeholders.

Finally, we're proud to be a member of the Disability Confident scheme. You can find more information on what this means here. If you wish to apply under this scheme, you should check the box in the ‘Candidate Personal Information’ under the ‘Disability Confident Scheme’ section of the application.

Salary and Benefits Information

This specific role offers a competitive salary (depending on skills and experience)

We encourage flexible working, part time working and job share arrangements. Part time salary and benefits will be on a pro-rated basis as appropriate.

In addition, we also offer a comprehensive benefits package as detailed below:

• A non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/95th of your annual salary for every year worked. There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/50th) or decrease (to 1/120th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year.
• A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool.
• A 7% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits. (Note that from April 2023 and for the Benefits year 2023/24, this will increase to 8%)
• 26 days’ annual leave with option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits.
• Private medical insurance and income protection.

National Security Vetting Process

Employment in this role will be subject to the National Security Vetting clearance process (and typically can take between 6 to 12 weeks post offer) and the passing of additional Bank security checks in accordance with the Bank policy. Further information regarding the vetting and security clearance requirements for the role will be provided to the successful applicant, and information about how the Bank processes personal data for these purposes, is set out in the Bank’s Privacy Notice at Privacy and the Bank of England | Bank of England.

The Application Process

The Executive Search Firm Saxton Bampfylde are supporting us with the recruitment for this position, if you wish to apply for this role please apply via this link https://www.saxbam.com/appointment/bank-of-england-3/

Please do not apply via our recruitment portal

Closing date for application is 18th September