Chief Operations Officer

• Accountable for the delivery of all services.
• A leader of change, governance and delivery excellence.

About Our Client

UK Shared Business Services (UKSBS) are a public sector, multi client, multi platform shared service provider, motivated to deliver the highest quality service to our central government partner organisations. We are proud of the part we play in enabling our partners to achieve the best outcomes for British citizens and the UK economy.

We strive to be the premier provider of HR, Payroll, Finance, Procurement and IT services within the UK public sector. Our commitment is to deliver a secure and seamless user experience, leveraging advanced technology and streamlined processes.

Our vision is to be the leading UK public sector business services provider, actively exploiting innovation and maximising value to clients. We achieve this by offering high quality, user friendly, and continuously improving business services that enable our partners to focus on their core mission: delivering the best outcomes for British citizens and the UK economy.

In line with the Government's Shared Services Strategy, we are expanding our client base to include eight government departments and a range of other new public sector partners, ensuring optimal value for the public purse. We have already migrated one of our ERP platforms to Oracle Fusion and the other will be replaced by a new Workday SaaS platform, from which UKSBS will deliver its business services, driving harmonisation and significant business change across the Departments.

UKSBS is engaged in a hugely exciting and challenging growth, modernisation and transformation journey. We are embracing new SaaS technologies (Oracle Fusion and Workday), onboarding new clients, and deepening engagement with current organisations. We have a significant scaling in user numbers, having doubled over the past five years to 30,000, and expect to see this grow by a further 15,000 by the end of this year and up to a further 15,000 by the end of the decade.

As UKSBS modernises its platforms and processes, revenue is expected to increase by 70% over the same period, with the business being committed to realising significant efficiency benefits that will drive smarter, more streamlined and harmonised operations. These improvements are designed to enhance customer satisfaction and deliver an outstanding user experience, meeting the needs of an ever growing and more diverse client base.

Job Description

Working closely with the CEO, Board and Executive team, you will be responsible for:

• Leading and motivating a multi site, multi functional team of over 350 employees to deliver a wide range of highly effective and efficient business services to our clients.
• Implementing a new service oriented operating model and organisational design.
• Driving a step change in user experience through continuous improvement and technology adoption, enabling ever greater levels of self service and automation.
• Ensuring the cost effectiveness of service delivery, maintaining quality and balancing risk.
• Acting as an active champion for UKSBS to clients and across the government / public sector.

Key Responsibilities Leadership

• As a member of the Executive, contribute to determining the organisation's multi year strategy.
• Lead, motivate and develop the capability and performance of a 300 strong multi site team.
• Model UKSBS values and behaviours, foster a culture aligned with UKSBS values and behaviours.
• Coach and mentor senior leaders across the organisation.

Relationship Management and Engagement

• Represent Service Delivery at Board, Audit and Executive Committees.
• Chair the Service Delivery Committee.
• Lead UKSBS representation at Partnership governance boards.
• Maintain strong networks across government and shared services.

Service Quality and Operational Delivery

• Ensure alignment of client requirements to the service delivery model.
• Define and ensure end to end delivery of service standards to agreed metrics through Heads of Service Delivery.
• Continuously develop functional capabilities through Heads of Profession to meet service delivery demands.

Programmes and Projects

• Develop business cases for change.
• Act as Senior Responsible Officer for projects and programmes.
• Track and evidence business case benefits.

Policy and Risk

• Develop business cases for change.
• Act as Senior Responsible Officer for projects and programmes.Track and evidence business case benefits.

Planning, Organising and Delivery

• Gain approval for annual operational plans.
• Maintain multi year improvement strategies.
• Ensure SLAs for availability, quality and response.
• Oversee ISO27001 compliance and audit responses.

The Successful Applicant Essential

• Proven strategic leadership of operational shared service delivery within complex organisations.
• Expertise in shared service, business transformation or adoption of cloud/SaaS ERP.
• Evidence of enhancing capacity, capability and culture in a large multi site team.
• Effectiveness in building and maintaining strong working relationships at a senior level within an organisation and with clients, suppliers and other partners.
• Demonstrable experience of data driven process rationalisation/harmonisation, including exploiting innovation and technology to drive service improvement and realise efficiencies.
• A track record of sound governance, risk management and financial control.
• Experience of service contract management.

Desirable

• Experience in the public sector.
• Likely to be educated to degree level.

Skills and Abilities

• Strategic, decisive and forward thinking, with a clear vision for the future of shared services.
• Inclusive, empowering and people centred, able to elevate capability, culture and performance.
• Commercially and operationally sharp, balancing quality, cost, risk and user experience.
• Innovative and technology minded, driving modernisation and smarter ways of working.
• Collaborative and credible, able to influence and engage senior stakeholders across government.
• Resilient and adaptable, comfortable leading through ambiguity and organisational change.

Our Behaviours

• Be Curious: Bringing curiosity and constructive challenge to what you do and how you do it.
• Take Action: Following curiosity through with actionable steps, thinking about how to do things differently.
• Add Value: Thinking about the value, purpose, quality, and impact of what you do.

Equality of opportunity is central to our values and our success.

Our aim is for equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) to be firmly embedded in everything that we do. That means embracing diversity within our workforce and creating a supportive environment where everyone feels valued, able to be themselves, and excel.

We recognise that diversity and an inclusive culture bring the variety of skills, thinking, and experiences that enable our people to shape and realise the ideas that drive improvement across our services.

As a Disability Confident employer, we take positive action to enable and support talented individuals to demonstrate their skills and abilities during the application process. We will happily make reasonable adjustments to enable you to demonstrate your talent, so if you need to do things differently, let us know.

What's on Offer

• A competitive salary of up to £125,000.
• An employer pension contribution of 26% within a defined benefit pension scheme.
• A generous annual leave allowance - 28 days, rising after the first year to a maximum of 30 days.
• Parental leave and family friendly policies.
• Hybrid working provides the flexibility to work from the office and at home.
• Wellbeing support through our Employment Assistance Programme and other wellbeing tools.
• Three volunteering days each year, enabling you to pursue your passion to support the local community.
• Employee lifestyle discounts.
• Childcare scheme and on site nursery (at our Swindon office).
• Cycle to work scheme and on site facilities.