New Local was founded in 1996 as the New Local Government Network. It relaunched as New Local in October 2020. New Local is a think tank and network of councils and other organisations working to energise local government and improve public services. At the heart of our work is ‘community power’ – the belief that people should be given the means to transform the places where they live and the services they use. We believe this is key to sustainable, fairer public services and a better society for all. We publish research on community power. We campaign for change. And we work directly with public and voluntary sector bodies to help them hand more power and resources over to communities.
The role
In recent months, New Local’s direct work with councils, the NHS, and other bodies to turn the principle of community power into reality has grown considerably. We have created the new role of Principal Practice Lead to support the development and delivery of this work. You will join New Local’s practice team and play a pivotal role in its early stages of development and growth.
The role will sit in the Practice team but will work closely with other teams and will report to the Director of Practice. The role will require a highly entrepreneurial mindset applied within a strong social purpose context and would suit someone with a background in areas such as social impact consultancy, strategic consultancy, management consultancy, transformation, system change, organisational development, and organisational impact.
Key roles and responsibilities
- Delivering impact: leading on the delivery of practice work, in particular, designing and delivering deliberative workshops and producing compelling outputs to achieve impact.
- Partnership working: building and maintaining strong relationships with practice partners and working collaboratively to co-design solutions with professionals and communities.
- Business development: generating practice revenues through creatively developing and responding to the new partnerships and business opportunities.
- Project management: project managing a portfolio of projects to ensure practice work is delivered within budget and to agreed timelines.
- And more… As part of a small, friendly and informal organisation you’ll have the opportunity to participate in other activities and support the wider delivery of New Local’s vision and strategy.
Experience and skills
- Excellent understanding of local government and the public sector and the confidence to work with senior officials and councillors to improve outcomes.
- Knowledge and capability to use different approaches and methodologies in practice work (e.g. workshop facilitation, strategy development, options appraisal, action learning).
- Excellent communications skills with the ability to put forward highly compelling and persuasive findings and recommendations which drive change in practice.
- Excellent analytical and writing skills applied in a practice improvement context.
- An entrepreneurial mindset with a track record of partnership initiation and business development.
- Excellent project planning and project management skills with strong attention to detail.
- Capability to work in a highly creative, collaborative, and autonomous way.
- Capability to deal with ambiguity and to support team members and partners to manage uncertainty and work towards clarity.
- Capability to actively contribute to the highly supportive and friendly organisational culture at New Local.
- Commitment to professional growth and development, both your own and through coaching or managing others.