Job Description

We Are St Helens Borough Council
St Helens is a transformational Council, which is passionate and ambitious for the communities we support. We provide a wide range of local authority services to the residents, businesses, schools, and visitors to the borough. We can only do this because of our highly valued, highly skilled, workforce.

Working together, our workplace vision and values guide our organisation, and the contribution of our workforce is key to our culture journey. Employees with us receive a wide range of benefits including well-being in work, financial benefits, ways of working and learning and development support.

About the role
St Helens Borough Council values cultural services and recognises the contribution they can make to reducing inequalities within the borough and to delivering outcomes identified through the Borough Strategy.

An exciting opportunity has arisen to lead Cultural Services which includes:

• Libraries buildings including staffing and outreach offer
• A Schools Library Service,
• Home Delivery Library offer,
• Heritage and Archive Team,
• Arts Development Team
• Visitor Economy and Events Team (New)

In the Autumn the Council will adopt a new five-year Library Strategy which will modernise the offer within the borough, having in the past three years produced and adopted strategies for Heritage and Arts and this post will be key in their implementation.

Over the life of the strategies there are major investments planned to:

• Relocate our two town centre libraries into purpose built new spaces within existing buildings,
• upgrade an existing library into the boroughs first SEND friendly library
• to upgrade the Archive Facilities making them more accessible to the public

The role will oversee in partnership with the Council\'s economy team and St Helens Chamber of Commerce, the production of a Visitor Economy Strategy for the borough, with a cultural offer at the heart of this, alongside the reestablishment of a borough-wide Visitor Economy Network.

The Council is rightly proud of its award-winning Arts in Libraries Project \xe2\x80\x9cCultural Hubs\xe2\x80\x9d which has just received confirmation of its continued funding as one of Arts Council England\'s National Portfolio Organisations.

This role is critical to the delivery of the Council\'s Ambitions for Cultural Services and the role they can play in the delivery of the borough\'s priorities.

What we are looking for
You will be a strategic and corporate manager who can set the right tone, direction, and culture for the Service. You will be adept at leading staff, volunteers and partners to create the right organisational and leadership culture. You can work with risk, innovate, and drive us to be modern, flexible, and ambitious in the way Cultural Services are managed in the borough.

You will be politically astute, understand and be committed to customer service and can lead delivery of high performing resident-facing services. You can manage large budgets, prioritise, and maintain grip on delivery. You will be comfortable driving change and running transformation programmes.

You will be proactive and thrive on challenge and opportunities. You will have the breadth of perspective and relationship skills to influence across the Council at all levels and with our partners and offer expert technical advice when required.

You will have experience of working at senior management level and be a leader with demonstrable experience of developing and delivering strategies and service development and will have experience of leading teams, demonstrating that you can successfully lead in areas where you may not be the technical expert.

Developing strategy will come naturally to you, as will turning policy into action, and action into outcomes. You will be able to monitor performance and judge whether cultural services are contributing to the aims of the borough strategy.

You will be able to effectively communicate complex information in a variety of straight forward, easy to understand ways to a wide array of internal and external stakeholders. You will be able to work collegiately and collaboratively with those outside your direct line management to deliver the priorities of your role.

Interviews for the post will take place on 2 October 2023.

Interested to Find Out More?
You can review our full job description details, and person specification information here.

Please note we reserve the right to close the advert early should we receive a sufficient number of applications and encourage you to apply early, to avoid disappointment.

Equality & Diversity
St Helens Borough Council respects and values the individuality that every employee brings. We encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds, who share our values, our commitment to inclusion, and who will help us on our journey to transform our organisation. Further information about Equality & Diversity at St Helens Borough Council can be found here https://www.sthelens.gov.uk/equality

St Helens Borough Council is a Disability Confident Employer. Disability Confident Employers lead the way in helping to take action that changes attitudes, behaviours, and cultures for the better.

NOLAN Principles of Conduct in Public Life.
All Council employees are required to abide by the ethical standards embodied by the 7 Nolan Principles: Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty, and Leadership

St Helens Borough Council