Team Lead – Mayoral Planning & Development Management

Our offer

Alongside the opportunity to make a real difference to the people who visit, live and work in the West of England, we offer an excellent benefits package including:

• 26 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, rising to 31 days after 5 years continuous service. There is also the option to increase your annual leave with our annual leave purchase scheme. 
• 2 days of paid leave each year to volunteer
• Local Government Pension Scheme (one of the most generous pension schemes in the UK).
• Flexible, family friendly and hybrid working options to ensure you achieve the best work/life balance and career goals. We follow a hybrid working model with typically 2 or 3 days in the office each week  
• Reduced bus fare travel across the West of England  

The salary for this role is £65,787 - £71,964. This is the full-time equivalent salary, and will be pro-rata for part-time. We advertise salary ranges for job roles, with new appointments for external candidates typically starting at the lowest salary point. In exceptional cases, where higher skill levels or experience are applicable, the salary point may be adjusted to secure the best candidate. This approach allows for potential year-on-year salary increases, offering progression and appropriate rewards to employees.

£65,787 - £71,964 (with a potential market supplement of up to £79,045)

The West of England Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) is seeking to appoint an exceptional Team Lead – Mayoral Planning & Development Management to establish and lead a new planning function at an important point in the evolution of the region’s planning system.

The West of England is one of the UK’s fastest-growing city-regions, with significant opportunities and challenges around housing delivery, economic growth, regeneration and infrastructure investment. How we work together across the region to manage strategically important development will be critical to achieving those ambitions.

New Mayoral planning powers will create an important new role for the MCA in relation to planning applications of potential strategic importance. Our challenge is to turn those new statutory responsibilities into a credible, effective and collaborative service.

As Team Lead – Mayoral Planning & Development Management, you will lead that work. You will build the team and capability we need, establish the operating model and ways of working for the new service, and forge strong relationships with local planning authorities and other partners across the region.

This is not simply about establishing processes. Success will depend on creating a service that combines high-quality professional advice and robust decision-making with trusted relationships across organisational boundaries. You will need to establish credibility quickly, navigate differing priorities and perspectives, and create a culture in which the team can operate confidently on complex and high-profile planning matters.

This is a rare opportunity to build a new statutory planning function from the ground up and shape how it operates from the outset.

We are looking for an outstanding leader who combines strong planning expertise with the ability to build teams, develop trusted relationships and turn new statutory responsibilities into an effective service.

This is a critical time in our transformation and growth journey, and you'll play a pivotal role in helping us achieve our ambitions by:

• Establishing and leading the MCA’s new Mayoral Planning & Development Management function.
• Building and developing a high-performing team with the skills and confidence to deliver a new statutory service.
• Creating the operating model, governance, systems and ways of working needed for the function to succeed.
• Developing strong and trusted relationships with the region’s local planning authorities and other key partners.
• Creating effective arrangements for handling planning applications of potential strategic importance.
• Providing clear, robust and impartial professional advice to the Mayor and senior leaders.
• Leading the MCA’s work on applications called in for Mayoral determination. 

Are you someone who can build a new team and service, establish credibility across organisational boundaries and bring people together around a new way of working?

As Team Lead – Mayoral Planning & Development Management, you will:

• Build and lead the MCA’s new Mayoral Planning & Development Management team, establishing its culture, capability and professional standards.
• Translate new legislation and policy into a practical and effective operating model.
• Establish the governance arrangements, procedures, casework systems and performance framework required to support the new function.
• Build strong working relationships with local planning authorities and agree effective arrangements for referrals, information sharing and case management.
• Work collaboratively with planning authorities, government, developers, statutory bodies and other partners while navigating different organisational interests and responsibilities.
• Provide trusted professional advice to the Mayor and senior officers on complex and potentially sensitive planning matters.
• Lead the assessment and handling of planning applications of potential strategic importance referred to the Mayor.
• Lead the handling of applications called in for Mayoral determination, including associated planning and section 106 matters.
• Create a service that is responsive, proportionate and respected for the quality and integrity of its professional advice.
• Develop the team and service over time as the new Mayoral planning arrangements become established.

Contract: Permanent/Full Time - 37 hours per week

Pay frequency: Annual

The introduction of new Mayoral planning powers gives us the opportunity to build a completely new capability within the MCA and to establish strong, collaborative arrangements for how those powers operate across the West of England.

You will be joining at the beginning, not inheriting a finished model. You will have the opportunity to shape the service, recruit and develop its team, establish its relationships with local planning authorities and create the systems and ways of working that will underpin it for the future.

For the right person, that offers something unusual: the opportunity to combine professional planning expertise with building a team, creating a new service and establishing a new set of relationships across the region.