Project Planner

Senior Project Planner with the Home Office

(Full-Time, Permanent)

About Capita

At Capita, we support clients across a range of sectors, including local Government, central Government, education, transport, health, life and pensions, insurance and other private sector organisations. We support with expertise applied by the talent across our business in combination with technology, insight and analytics to keep our clients ahead of change, sharper than competitors and more efficient than ever ??? and we always need new talent to help us achieve our goals.

We are currently recruiting for interesting and exciting positions at the Home Office. The Home Office keeps the UK secure and prosperous; protects its citizens, residents and visitors and their property; and upholds rights, liberties and the rule of law. Leading on immigration and passports, drugs policy, crime and fire policy, counterterrorism and work to ensure visible, responsive and accountable policing in the UK.

The Home Office

This role is an exciting opportunity for a dynamic and innovative person to be at the forefront of change in one of the great Departments of State. We are delivering significant transformation in order to continue keeping our citizens safe and our country secure. New technology and the fast-evolving nature of the threats we face mean we must adapt, and adapt fast, and with the UK leaving the EU, the need for change is greater than ever.

Project Planners play a key role in delivering advice and guidance to the project/programme leadership and their teams on how to best deliver the required outputs, products and activities within the scope of the plan within the Home Office Transformation Portfolio. It is large, complex and challenging, encompassing over 20 major and/or mission critical projects and programmes plus four business portfolios of change. There is a strong focus on agile, modular project delivery, supported by enterprise-wide portfolio management and you could find yourself working on a project for the UK???s critical national infrastructure through to a complex technology enabled business change programme

The Role of a Project Planner

Your role as Project Planner will be to work with stakeholders to ensure all aspects of the project are defined. You will provide clarity on key milestones to define what, when and how activities will be organised to ensure the outcomes of a project can be achieved, with the resources available.

Key Outcome & Deliverables

The Senior Planner role is to provide planning and scheduling expertise at both Programme and Project level. The Planner will provide clarity on key milestones to define what, when and how activities will be organised to ensure the outcomes of the project can be achieved, with the resources available. Working with the head of PMO, to capture and compile programme and project dashboards, standing and ad-hoc reporting and information requirements including the maintenance of programme information captured.

Typical Role Responsibilities:

??       Delivery and Leadership ??? Provide visible and effective leadership, lead the planning team and work with the project manager to deliver the business case benefits and outcomes. Develop clear vision and standards and champion the use of best practice project planning standards, tools and processes. Build strong networks both internally and externally.

??       Project Planning ??? Apply advanced knowledge in the discipline of planning for the analysis and successful resolution of risks and issues and identification of opportunities.

??       Resources ??? Identify future capacity and capability needs of the project planning function and puts in place strategies to meet them.

??       Stakeholder Management ??? Build and maintain external networks to access technical and professional best practice.

??       Project Performance and Controls ??? Analyse performance data, looking at trends to identify areas for improvement and collaboration, and selecting appropriate methods and tools to resolve them.

??       Guidance and Support ??? Provide specialist advice and support to ensure successful delivery of projects. Provide guidance and advice to the Project Manager during project initiation on selection of planning approach, tools, processes and proportionality. Identify and lead the introduction of best practice planning processes, tools and templates, using industry standard best practice as a benchmark. Build planning capability.

Essential Criteria and competencies:

??       Strong project planning experience gained within Central Government or Public Sector

??       Experience in putting together dependencies (dependency mapping)

??       Experience in overseeing the development and maintaining of project plans for large and complex programme

??       Team management experience

??       Excellent working knowledge of MS Project

??       Experience working with high level of stakeholders (delivering presentations, influencing decisions, confidence, strong relationships building skills)

Typical Qualifications and Professional Memberships include:

??       PRINCE2 Practitioner

Please note successful applicants will be expected to go through Security Clearance.