Head of Community Cohesion

Can you work collaboratively to lead and develop strategies to enhance community safety, foster social cohesion, and improve the overall well-being of residents in Brighton & Hove?, We are recruiting for a newly created role of Head of Community Cohesion within our Families, Children & Wellbeing Directorate. You will report into our new Director Commissioning and Communities and be responsible for our Community Safety, Prevent, Violence against Women and Girls, International migration, refugee programmes and third sector teams.
We are looking for a senior leader who can drive the council to:
· Be connected: to enable a connected organisation that has a clear one Council mission to create "a better Brighton and Hove for all." Building a leadership that connects and brings critical resources together to address the knotty and challenging issues we face as a city. Creating a structure with clear accountability, communication and transparency that empowers Officers to make decisions as close to the front line as possible.
· Be innovative and diverse: to enable the organisation to become more dynamic. To build a diverse workforce and leadership, which reflects the communities of Brighton and Hove that we serve. To support a network of leaders at all career stages.
· Be confident: to build working practices that are agile and take a test & learn approach. To embed reflective practice, and a growth mindset culture where we all learn from our mistakes and use these experiences as opportunities to grow as an organisation. Build the workforce skill and acumen to work in complexity and be courageous leaders.
· Be creative: to build the space and capacity for experimentation, reflection, and innovation. To enable creative policy development. To become a City Council that is an influencer and leader in key policy that will change the lives of our residents. To be a Council that embraces AI and new technologies to create efficiency and space to deal with the critical challenges our residents face, while recognising their limitations. Creating the space for our great staff to learn and grow with technological change so they can grow their careers with the skills they need and a culture where focus on efficiency and value for money is embedded in our ways of working.
· Be healthy and psychologically safe: to create a trusted environment, enabling everyone to bring their best selves to work. To build a resilient workforce that looks after its health and wellbeing.
This role is politically restricted. For further information on what this means for employees in post, please click on the document attachment below.
Please read our pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you've submitted your application and at interview.
As part of your application, you will need to upload your CV and a supporting statement. Your supporting statement is the most important part of your application as it will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our guidance here ( and ( as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.
Useful Links:
Council plan::
And the Workforce equalities report:
Additional information
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.
We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit
Company information
Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or trans.
Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our actions, our and .

Can you lead initiatives to reduce crime, anti-social behaviour, and fear of crime within the community?
Do you hold a degree or have substantial and proven experience of leading and managing Community Cohesion services in accordance with legislation and policy?
Do you have experience of developing, influencing and leading partnerships, at a senior level?
Do you have experience of managing large and complex budgets, working in a political environment and leading a multi-disciplinary team?