As a Forward Planning Manager, you’ll be a remote worker. This means you’ll be working from home and from project locations, but you’ll be attached to one of our offices. We are currently recruiting to fill roles attached to the London office.

About the Job

The DfE Capital Directorate is responsible for running capital investment programmes for the Department across England. It is staffed by specialists with backgrounds in both the public and the private sector. Staff have expertise in the areas of planning, design, property, construction, procurement, ICT and education. By working for the DfE Planning Team you will be able to make a real difference to local communities and the national landscape of education.

A key role of the in-house planning service is to ensure that planning advice is available through the life of a project; that suitable planning strategies are in place to ensure the timely delivery of planning permissions; and that planning risk is appropriately assessed through the life of a project. The team works with a range of internal and external partners, including contractors and consultants and with DfE’s multi-disciplinary teams of property, legal, commercial and technical experts.

We work on planning policy development at local, regional and national level. We encourage Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to understand their infrastructure needs for new school places as part of local plans, and aim to ensure appropriate developer contributions are secured and effective partnerships delivered as part of major new housing development.

The DfE Planning Team is managed by the Head of Planning, supported by the Head of Forward Planning, Regional Planning Leads and Planning Support staff.

The Forward Planning Managers report to the Head of Forward Planning and have responsibility for promoting strategic planning initiatives at a national, regional and local level to support the DfE’s capital delivery programmes.

Key responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain constructive working relationships with officials at MHCLG, local planning authorities in the region and other key stakeholders to promote a policy framework that supports school delivery.
• Work with DfE operational planning leads to identify and promote the allocation of sites for schools in emerging local plans.
• Support the delivery of schools through CIL, S106 and other initiatives such as the Housing Infrastructure Fund and Garden Communities programme.
• Engage with LPAs, residential developers and other stakeholders to identify schemes for forward funding new schools to assist timely delivery and promote place-making.
• Where appropriate, commission external consultants to support the DfE’s planning work including agreement of scope of work, on-going liaison and performance management.
• Identify and resolve planning issues as they arise including escalation to the Head of Forward Planning and senior management.
• Provide planning advice within Ministerial and other formal submissions in relation to DfE’s decision-making processes, including planning and associated risk.
• To provide support to the Head of Forward Planning, Head of Planning and others in the team on policy development and strategic initiatives, drawing on wider experience of the property market, planning and infrastructure projects.

Job criteria – skills and requirements:

You will need to be a qualified Town Planner (MRTPI) with post qualification experience in local authorities, central government and associated bodies, or the private sector. You will have established a reputation as a trusted advisor, with a proven track record of influencing policy and/or providing strategic advice on large scale private and/or public sector infrastructure projects on behalf of applicants, the determining authority and/or other statutory parties and stakeholders.

You will have experience of building professional relationships at a senior level, particularly with Local Authorities, other public sector organisations and developers. You have strong knowledge of planning legislation and best practice in the fields of forward planning and development management. Your varied experience includes working with both Local Planning Authorities and the property and development industries. You will be a strong communicator with excellent written and verbal skills and able to disseminate technical policy areas into plain English and using a range of communication styles. The successful candidate will demonstrate the capability and enthusiasm for working independently whilst maintaining a high performance output across a range of projects to tight deadlines.

For this role you will need to be available to be in London and/or across the South-East region for an average of 2 to 3 days a week. This will include attendance at meetings in Sanctuary Buildings (DfE) and with Local Authorities.

For more information, please see the attached job description.

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