Hampshire and the Solent Combined County Authority
Head of Portfolio Office
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Working hours: Full time - 37 hours per week
Schedule type: Hybrid working - Office days 2 days per week, however this is dependent on business needs
Are you looking for a role where you can help shape something new, make a visible difference and work alongside people who care deeply about their place? If so, HSCCA could be a brilliant next step. We are building a new Combined County Authority for Hampshire and the Solent, bringing together partners across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton to bring investment to the region and to create opportunities for our people, places, communities and businesses.
The Role
As the Head of Portfolio Office you will play a key role in translating strategic objectives into practical, deliverable change across programmes, projects, and organisational initiatives. Working closely with stakeholders, you will analyse business needs, define requirements, map current and future processes, and support informed decision-making around services, systems, operating models, and ways of working. By reducing ambiguity, identifying improvements, and ensuring solutions align with user needs, statutory requirements, and organisational priorities, you will help strengthen change delivery, improve organisational readiness, and support the development of sustainable and effective new arrangements across HSCCA.
What you’ll be doing?
In this role, you’ll play a crucial part in ensuring our teams have the tools, knowledge, and processes they need to deliver a high-quality service. You will:
- Set the Portfolio Office direction for HSCCA - defining the operating model, standards, governance, tools and ways of working that support effective portfolio, programme and project delivery across the organisation.
- Create and maintain a single integrated view of the portfolio - bringing together programmes, projects, dependencies, milestones, risks, resource pressures, benefits, affordability and delivery confidence into clear insight for senior decision-makers.
- Lead portfolio prioritisation, sequencing and pipeline management - helping senior leaders make evidence-based choices where demand exceeds capacity or funding, and ensuring the organisation focuses effort on the right work, at the right time and in the right sequence.
- Lead project appraisal and business case challenge - ensuring proposals are tested consistently before they proceed, with clear expectations for strategic alignment, benefits, affordability, risks, dependencies, readiness and value for money.
- Establish proportionate governance and assurance - designing decision routes, reporting standards, assurance checkpoints and escalation arrangements aligned to public sector project delivery standards, the Local Assurance Framework and HSCCA’s wider accountability requirements.
- Lead portfolio reporting and performance insight - providing high-quality, decision ready information to the Executive Team, Boards and governance forums on progress, delivery confidence, benefits, risks, issues, milestones, affordability and interdependencies.
- Develop benefits and value management - ensuring expected benefits are identified, baselined, tracked, challenged and reported consistently, with a clear line of sight between investment decisions, organisational outcomes and public value.
- Lead capacity, resource and affordability planning - developing a realistic view of organisational demand, capability and constraints, identifying pressure points early and advising where work should be deferred, reshaped or re-phased.
- Provide independent assurance and constructive challenge - working with senior leaders, delivery leads, Finance, corporate services and partners to test assumptions, surface delivery risks, manage trade-offs and support confident decisions in a politically visible environment.
- Develop portfolio management maturity across HSCCA - embedding consistent approaches to plans, RAID, dependencies, reporting, benefits, change control, decision logs, lessons learned, governance packs and evidence trails.
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What you’ll bring?
We’re looking for someone with:
- Extensive senior-level experience of building or reshaping a Portfolio Office, PMO or strategic project governance function in a complex public sector, regulated or multi stakeholder environment.
- Strong capability in portfolio management, including strategic alignment, prioritisation, sequencing, integrated planning, pipeline management, governance, assurance, reporting, risk and issue management, dependency management and delivery confidence assessment.
- Experience leading portfolio oversight across complex programmes, investment activity, organisational transition or transformation, with the ability to support senior leaders in making difficult prioritisation and trade-off decisions.
- Experience of project appraisal, business case challenge, benefits tracking, readiness assessment and evidence-based prioritisation, with the ability to test proposals before they proceed.
- Excellent stakeholder management, facilitation, communication and influencing skills, with credibility across senior leaders, elected Members, delivery teams, corporate services, partners and external stakeholders.
- Understanding of public sector accountability, assurance, value for money, inclusion, accessibility, confidentiality and responsible stewardship of public funds.
- Experience working in local government, a combined authority, central government, an arm’s length body or another politically accountable public sector environment.
We do not expect you to meet every one of these criteria. If you are excited by the role and bring most of what we are looking for, we want to hear from you.
Why join the HSCCA?
We are building the HSCCA on the basis that how we work is as important as what we deliver. We want people who bring energy, drive, and authenticity - who are proactive, open to challenge, and motivated by progress rather than process. We value collaborative leadership: the ability to bring people together across organisational boundaries, respect the expertise of others, and create shared direction without needing to own everything.
We act in line with the Nolan Principles. We use public money responsibly, make evidence-based decisions, and hold ourselves to high standards of integrity, inclusion, and accessibility. We expect feedback to be given and received constructively, challenge to be welcomed, and relationships to be built on openness, trust, and mutual respect.
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This is a complex, fast-moving environment. We need people who are energised by that.
What the HSCCA will offer in return?
As we take on new responsibilities devolved from Government, you will have a genuine opportunity to contribute to building a public service organisation that does things differently.
Our reward package includes:
- A flexible working environment, with hybrid working arrangements as standard (minimum 2 days per week in our office)
- A competitive salary and benefits package
- Investment in your professional development and leadership growth
- The chance to work alongside a leadership team that is committed to building an organisation where people thrive
- Membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme
The HSCCA is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and accessible workplace where everyone feels valued and able to thrive. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and lived experiences, particularly those from groups that are currently underrepresented in our workforce. This includes people from ethnic minority communities, disabled people, neurodivergent people, LGBTQ+ people, parents and carers, and individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds. We are committed to removing barriers to employment and encourage candidates to let us know about any reasonable adjustments they may need at any stage of the recruitment process.
Selection process
Your application will progress through the following stages:
Application Review
Your CV and supporting documents will be reviewed by Reed Recruitment against the essential criteria outlined in the Skills & Experience section of this advert. Please ensure your CV clearly demonstrates how you meet the required criteria in order to be considered.
Telephone Interview
If shortlisted, you will be invited to an initial telephone interview. During this stage, you will be assessed against the Skills & Experience criteria and your overall suitability for the position.
Face-to-face Interview
If shortlisted, you will be invited to an initial telephone interview. During this stage, you will be assessed against the Skills & Experience criteria and your overall suitability for the position. This is the final stage of the selection process and will determine the outcome of your application.
Feedback
Feedback will be provided following the final face-to-face interview stage. Please note that feedback is only available to candidates who attend the final stage interview stage. Successful candidates will then be considered for an offer.
Further information:
As a Disability Confident Committed employer, we run a guaranteed interview scheme for disabled applicants. If you meet the essential criteria listed in the job description for this position and would like to be considered under this scheme, please state this in your application.
All data collected is anonymous and has zero bearing on your application. If there is anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let the recruitment team know.
We are committed to fair and inclusive recruitment. As part of this, we use anonymous shortlisting to ensure candidates are assessed solely on their skills, experience, and suitability for the role.
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