Portfolio Transformation Office Manager - Central Operations

We are recruiting for a Portfolio Transformation Office Manager to join the Central Operations (CO) directorate at the Bank of England.

Central Operations is integral to enabling the Bank to deliver its vital mission. It is at the heart of delivering essential services to this unique organisation. We are responsible for creating and maintaining safe, sustainable, and collaborative environments, across all our locations, to enable and protect the Bank fulfil its mission. From maintaining, enhancing, and securing the Bank's premises and the infrastructures required to support the Bank's critical functions, to developing and delivering data driven plans which include people, services, assets, locations, systems and technologies to further drive efficiencies and effectiveness, to creating the Bank's sustainability strategy. We are a high performing team that has responsibility for delivering sustainable value for money solutions through strong supplier management and customer service.

We take pride in our people, with backgrounds and experiences as diverse as the services we provide. You'll enjoy flexible working opportunities, a strong sense of community and well-being, and a collective mission to promote the good of the people of the UK. All of which add up to make the Bank a hugely rewarding place to work.

Role Description

The Central Operations (CO) portfolio is made up of 2 distinct programmes which have their own Programme Management Offices (PMO), as well as 1 capital works programme and 4 business change programmes. All programmes contribute to the CO portfolio and the delivery of the CO strategy, goals, and business outcomes. The CO Portfolio Transformation Office (PTO) is the 'hub' PTO for Central Operations, linked to the CS25 and Location Strategy PMO's 'spokes.' The CO PTO contributes to the delivery of the CO outcomes by assuring appropriate controls and reporting to enable timely visibility of the consolidated delivery status to Transformation Oversight Group and that the programmes align with the CO strategic goals.

The Portfolio Transformation Office Manager (PTOM) is responsible for the transformation agenda across CO, assuring delivery of the directorate's strategy by assuring the implementation of best-practise processes and relevant controls to de-risk delivery, without being bureaucratic; whilst creating an optimal environment that increases capability and enables effective decisions, through concise, timely and meaningful management information.

The role holder is responsible for ensuring the CO transformation programme has effective standards and controls in place, has an effective and appropriate governance model, provides timely, accurate, concise, and appropriate portfolio MI, reporting and oversight to facilitate decision making to the Central Operations Executive Director (CO ED) and Central Operations Transformation Oversight Group (TOG), as well as managing business change effectively. An effective Transformation Office is a key enabler to the overall success of the CO Transformation and subsequent BAU operation.

The PTOM will report to the CO Chief of Staff.

The key responsibilities of the role are to:

• Identify opportunities to use your experience and skills to support delivery of aspects of the CO Transformation programme objectives.


• Provide a value-added service that supports and enables the delivery of CO transformation in line with the agreed RACI and Executive Sponsors accountabilities.


• Create strategies to support CO-ED and TOG ensure stakeholders have a clear view of timescales, deliverables, costs and risks and issues of the programmes within the scope of the TOG terms of reference.


• Demonstrate effective engagement with key delivery stakeholders by ensuring they are suitably informed on status of the Portfolio.


• Work with the Stakeholder Engagement Partner to ensure effective management of the portfolio stakeholder plan, managing communications to internal & external stakeholders.


• Facilitate the approval processes through which projects are initiated and added to the CO programme.


• Design and implement appropriate and effective standards and controls for controlling the CO programme delivery.


• Produce Portfolio KPI's, management information and analysis to facilitate and enable effective insights and decision making of Portfolio delivery.


• Develop management information and dashboards that disseminate data to enable effective decision making, with clear definitions of any measures of delivery performance - creating ad-hoc, bespoke reporting as required by the Executive Sponsor, and TOG.


• Put in place effective mechanisms for collecting information and updates on progress, issues and risk for the programmes and projects, providing an early warning of any variances and exceptions to the TOG.


• Create and collate regular programme reports for the Executive Sponsor and TOG.


• Lead the reporting for the portfolio, setting out standards and defining reporting timetables for the programmes and projects, to ensure provision of reliable and consistent management information for the monthly TOG, also acting as secretariat.


• Identify and maintain dependency oversight by supporting cross-programme, portfolio, and business change activities, working through the sharing of information to assure the effective management of dependencies.


• Proactively identifying and advising on need for interventions/escalations, direction to the Executive Sponsor, Senior Responsible Owners, Programme Managers, and Heads of Profession, and/or following escalation path when required to support effective governance of the Portfolio.


• Be proactive in scrutinising the information input to PTOM reporting and constructively challenge it, as appropriate.


• Act as a catalyst to make things happen and resolve blockers through effective stakeholder management.


• Actively manage and monitor the Portfolio RAID, ensuring updates are provided at a minimum monthly to TOG.


• Ensure all risks and issues have clear action plans (with dates and owners) and assumptions and dependencies are agreed.


• Identify peaks of work across CO programmes and projects and proposing solutions to resource contentions.


• Ensure auditable artefacts are traceable and configuration management expectations are applied.


• Facilitate and coordinate lessons learned and benefits reviews when programme phases are completed, capturing, and proactively disseminating the information.


• Drive continuous improvement across the portfolio through lessons learned (identifying, sharing and addressing), sharing best practices, and promoting opportunities to deliver more effectively; 'doing more with less'.


• Proactive ownership and resolution of issues working collaboratively with programme and project teams and business areas to reach resolution with minimal unnecessary escalation.


• Create effective strategies for effective planning, and the monitoring and tracking of the holistic portfolio delivery plan.


• Define the benefits that will realize the strategic objectives of the CO programmes and projects.


• Plan the business change resulting from the CO programmes and projects.


• Develop and maintain the benefit realization plan, advising Senior Responsible Owners on benefit identification, tracking and management.


• Define and track the key performance indicators for benefit realization.


• Provide clear plan of activities, duration and resources required to implement business change.


• Support the Senior Responsible Owners and Heads of Profession with managing "business continuity" during the change.


• Support the Senior Responsible Owners and Heads of Profession with preparing affected business areas for transition to the new way of working. Potentially implementing new business processes; and optimize the timing of the release of new deliverables into business operations.


• Advise the Executive Sponsor and TOG on whether the outputs and outcomes will lead to the realization of the benefits.
  
  Significant experience in leading the PMO for large engagement portfolio and programmes within organisations to support transformational change.


• Proven experience of leading on the design, selection, and implementation of portfolio standards.


• Experience within property, operations, and services industry.


• Extensive prior experience and track record in centralised Portfolio and change management with the expertise and knowledge to support the delivery of a complex programme and its proposed outcomes; and see change delivery through into BAU; including planning, RAID management, governance processes, reporting, budget management and financial forecasting, change control, and business change.


• Knowledge and experience to use industry best practice to find and design the best solution for the programme (including bespoke reporting for Executive Director and Senior leadership team)


Essential Criteria


• Excellent prioritisation and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate often complex subjects into clear messages for various audiences, adapting or re-planning quickly according to senior stakeholders' needs or the external environment.


• A proactive self-starter who can develop and maintain effective working relationships with the CO Leadership team and partners of varying levels of seniority.


• Experienced at supporting and presenting information to senior stakeholders, such as ED and senior leadership team.


• Can quickly assess immediate needs of the portfolio and act to find fit for purpose solutions.


• Strong relationship management skills, the ability to influence and improve portfolio credibility at a senior level.


• Ability to think strategically, using judgement and prioritising effectively.


• Evolves from the mobilisation of key controls to adapting and optimising as the portfolio matures to drive greater insight and enable decision making.


• Ability to challenge constructively whilst maintaining excellent working relationships within the Transformation portfolio.


• Able to use judgement and provide sound justification for decisions.


• Experience of working collaboratively across portfolio and organisational boundaries to achieve shared goals.


• Strong analytical skills; able to report critical information and patterns from complex data, producing accurate conclusions and recommendations.


• Excellent MS Office skills, including Microsoft Project and Excel.


• Experience of stakeholder management across a diverse set of senior level leaders who have opposing priorities.


• Proven ability to work asynchronously and autonomously and coach others to do so.


• Creative thinker - a problem solver, able to see a way through blockers to the bigger picture.


• Strong analytical skills and ability to manage complexity, identifying potential problems, assessing them and putting forward solutions.


• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.


• Excellent prioritisation and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate often complex subjects into clear messages for various audiences, adapting or re-planning quickly according to senior stakeholders' needs or the external environment.


• Thoroughness and attention to detail.


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.

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.

This role offers a salary of circa £65,755 - £75,000. 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 8% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits.


• 26 days' annual leave with option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits.


• Private medical insurance and income protection.


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