Job description - Head of Leisure and Wellbeing

Are you passionate about improving peoples’ quality of life and enabling leisure and wellbeing opportunities for all? Can you strike the right balance between commercial acumen and social value? Are you an innovator with exceptional relationship management and leadership skills?

Publica is on the hunt for a dynamic and experienced professional to join our team as a Head of Leisure and Wellbeing, to promote a healthy and active lifestyle amongst our residents and make our communities even stronger and more resilient. You will want to make a difference and in this new, exciting and challenging role working across Cotswold, Forest of Dean and West Oxfordshire districts you certainly can.

About the role

We’re looking for an ambitious and experienced professional to join us and lead our leisure and community wellbeing teams. They are inspirational people who play a key role in promoting healthy and active lifestyles in our communities and making sure our leisure and cultural services are first class. If you can be equally inspiring, have a passion for activating communities and the talents needed to drive our leisure and wellbeing services to new heights, we want to hear from you!

Our successful candidate will be responsible for leading all aspects of the leisure and wellbeing services across our partnership, encouraging more resilient, well-connected and active communities. There’s no doubt you’ll have the commercial acumen and contract relationship management abilities needed to make sure the councils’ leisure delivery partners are providing a first class experience, but this role is so much wider than a facilities led approach.

You’ll take accountability for delivering the councils’ aspirations to address health inequalities, improve access to community based activities and tackle isolation and deprivation. By collaborating with the organisations in our Integrated Care Systems, other partners and our highly valued voluntary and community sectors, you’ll improve peoples’ physical and mental wellbeing through sustainable behaviour change.

Asset based community development is integral to the way we work alongside our communities, so you’ll need to be a real champion for this way of working. As a seasoned place shaper you’ll also work closely with colleagues responsible for economic growth and prosperity, environment and planning policy to leave a lasting legacy of thriving communities.

We think this is a great opportunity. We often say that every year working for Publica, providing leisure and wellbeing services for three councils in two counties brings the equivalent variety and job satisfaction of a couple years at a single council. It will also give you a genuinely supportive environment for your own growth and development.

You will need

• Experience of working in a politically diverse environment with the ability to manage competing demands and priorities, across multiple partners.
• Ability to build collaborative networks and form strong, productive relationships with system partners to grow our reputation as a partner of choice and maximise external funding to support service delivery.
• Demonstrable success of driving innovation and collaboration to maximise funding opportunities.
• A firm understanding of and demonstrable experience of working using an asset-based community development approach.
• In-depth experience in a leadership or managerial role within the leisure and wellbeing industry or a relevant sector

Our future

The pace of change in the world of local government is getting faster, whether it be levelling up and shared prosperity, climate change or local pressures, such as affordable housing, we are being asked to do more, faster and with less money. Publica has already established a strong and enviable track record in delivering savings and improving services, but we want to go further. We also want to explore ways to provide more of the things that our existing council partners want and to look beyond our existing boundaries to see how what we do might benefit new partners.

Special conditions

• There will a requirement to work at other Publica Group Ltd and/or client locations to meet the needs of the business.
• You will be expected to work reasonable additional hours in line with the needs of the service.
• You will need the use of a car for work purposes.

For more information about this role please see the Job Description and Employee Specification.

Job description and employee specification

If you would like an informal discussion about this role with Andy Barge, our Assistant Director for Communities, please contact Sheena Woodhead on 01594 812503 or sheena.woodhead@publicagroup.uk who will be able to schedule this.

You will be employed by Publica Group Ltd which was created by four partner councils (West Oxfordshire District Council, Cotswold District Council, Cheltenham Borough Council and Forest of Dean District Council) to deliver more efficient and improved services.

Publica is a unique place to work – we are a local government organisation with a twist! Publica wants to transform the way local services are delivered. To help do this we have started to fundamentally rethink the way we design our services in the digital era so that Publica is a customer-focused organisation driven by real user needs.

Dear candidate letter

What can we do for you

• Agile working allowing a mix of home and office working
• Flexible working arrangements (depending on the role)
• 27 days paid annual leave (pro rata if you are working part time) plus bank holidays and an extra two volunteering days off a year for you to support a charity of your choice
• Health cash plan giving you cash back on health, dental and eye care
• Pension scheme with a good employer contribution of 5% of your earnings
• Employee Assistance Programme 24/7, providing positive, preventative and supportive advice and counselling to deal with everyday events and issues
• Cycle to work scheme
• Salary sacrifice car lease scheme with huge tax and NI savings to be made on electric cars
• Access to digital financial advice (covering your pension scheme, mortgages and other finances)
• Generous sickness cover above statutory entitlements
• Additional income protection, covering 50% of your salary for potentially a further five years if you are unable to work due to sickness or injury
• Life assurance, currently four times your annual salary

How to apply

Please submit an up-to-date copy of your CV, along with a supporting statement (four sides of A4 maximum) addressing the criteria set out in the role profile and using examples to demonstrate how you meet the essential requirements.

Documents should be emailed to join-us@publicagroup.uk. Please include and upload the below information in two documents only. If you experience any issues whilst applying, please contact join-us@publicagroup.uk.

Applications should include:

• Your full contact details.
• Names, positions, organisations, and contact details for two referees (we will ask your permission before contacting referees).
• Notification of any dates when you are not available throughout the recruitment process.

Please tell us about your skills, knowledge, qualifications, experience and how they meet the criteria listed above and in the job description/person specification. It’s important that we’re a good fit for each other, so let us know what’s important to you and why you want to work for Publica Group Ltd.

Your application will not be considered if you have not provided a supporting statement, in addition to your CV.

Closing date: Sunday 24 September 2023

Interviews: Friday 29 September 2023

Accredited of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy/ies - Please state this within your covering statement or in a separate email. 

Safer recruitment practices are applied to all job vacancies. Successful candidates will be required to complete a pre-employment medical questionnaire; provide references; proof of identity; nationality and immigration status; three years’ employment or education history (if applicable) and, in some cases, verification of criminal record.