Strategic Planning & Performance Lead

Strategic Planning & Performance Lead

The Church of England Pensions Board

Church House or Bishopthorpe - flexible and hybrid working options ( 1 day per week in office)

Band 2 : £57,297 (pro rata of £71,621) Permanent, Part-Time (28 hours per week)

About the Church of England Pensions Board

The Church of England Pensions Board provides retirement services to those who serve or work for the Church. Both a regulated pension fund and registered charity, more than 43,000 people rely on us for their pensions. A leader in ethical and responsible investment, we carefully steward the £3.5bn of pension savings entrusted to us to not only grow our members’ pensions, but also to drive systemic and lasting change across the industries and sectors in which we invest for a just and sustainable word. The Board also supports 2,300 retired clergy with housing, including managing a national portfolio of 1,200 rented homes and Community Living options.

Supported by a multi-million pound grant from the wider Church, we are setting up a new function responsible for engaging with clergy at all stages of life and ministry on their current and future plans. This includes offering access to: grants to kick-start saving, bespoke advice at key life stages and tailored products that will give our customers more choice about their future.

We are seeking a proactive and highly organised Performance Lead to join our new team, taking responsibility for evaluating the impact and effectiveness of the Financial Wellbeing service. You will lead performance reporting, team governance, planning cycles and risk management, ensuring the service is well run, accountable and continuously improving. A critical part of this role includes business case development, for future services and funding.

Our values

We want the Pensions Board to be a great place to work. For us that starts by ensuring that everyone feels that they belong and are valued for who they are and what they contribute.

Living out our values in all that we do, we:

• Strive for Excellence

• Show Compassion

• Respect others

• Collaborate

• Act with Integrity

The Pensions Board, as part of the National Church Institutions (NCIs) of the Church of England, offers a safe, inclusive workplace for people of all backgrounds and walks of life. We welcome applications from people of all faiths and of no faith. We want to encourage applications from a diverse group of people who share our values. Even if you have never thought about working for us before, if you have the skills and experience we’re looking for, then we would like to hear from you.

What you’ll be doing

As Strategic Planning & Performance Lead, you will be the integrator and operational anchor for the Financial Wellbeing service ensuring we have the right governance, planning cycles, KPIs and performance reporting in place to run an effective, accountable and high impact service.

This includes assessing service delivery against our strategic goals and building up a good picture of future demand for the Board’s in retirement services, especially retirement housing. This role is both analytical and operational: you will ensure the service has a clear view of its performance while also shaping the processes, rhythms and governance structures that keep the team aligned and effective. You will work closely with the Insight & Data Analyst Lead to ensure performance reporting is robust, with Finance and Strategy on investment/business case design and business planning, and with Audit & Risk to ensure compliance and assurance.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Performance, Monitoring & Evaluation

• Lead the monitoring and evaluation framework for the service, ensuring KPIs and impact measures are meaningful, accurate and aligned to strategic objectives. Developing the framework as required.
• Produce regular performance reports for the PB Executive and Trustees, ensuring clarity, insight and ownership across the financial wellbeing team. Ensure performance reporting is timely, consistent and aligned with organisational standards.
• Collaborate with Financial Wellbeing colleagues to ensure data is interpreted effectively and used to drive improvements.
• Develop and recommend new KPIs or impact assessment measures where needed to strengthen understanding of service effectiveness.
• Collaborate with the Head of Customer Service, service leads and Regional Advisers to ensure performance monitoring is embedded across the team.
• Ensure the Financial Wellbeing service has a clear, accurate and up to date view of projected clergy retirement housing needs,. Owning the collaboration between financial wellbeing and Housing colleagues to develop and maintain shared datasets and planning models.
• Ensure the customer voice is central to and ingrained in any planning, service evaluation and decision making for the financial wellbeing services.
• Liaise with wider Pension Board and NCI colleagues to ensure Financial Wellbeing service delivery is imbedded in organisation wide feedback mechanisms

Governance & Planning

• Set up, manage and refine governance structures for the team, including the rhythm of team meetings, project boards (where needed) and stakeholder forums.
• Support Director in the annual business planning and objective setting processes within the financial wellbeing team, working with Strategy and Finance colleagues to ensure alignment with the broader organisational cycle.
• Coordinate the development of investment cases for future funding, working closely with Finance, Strategy, and Housing colleagues.
• Maintain forward plans, calendars and governance documentation to support effective and proactive oversight and decision making.
• Ensure the service meets audit, risk and compliance requirements.
• Provide briefings and updates to senior leaders and for governance forums (such housing committees and project boards) including drafting papers and reports.
• Promote a culture of good governance and continuous improvement.

Risk Management & Assurance

• Lead risk identification and management for the service, working to NCI guidance.
• Maintain the service risk register and ensure risks are escalated appropriately.
• Coordinate internal audits with Audit & Risk teams and support Finance on external audits.
• Ensure audit recommendations are tracked, owned and implemented.
• Work with Head of Customer services to ensure appropriate business continuity plans in place for the service

Problem solving and continuous improvement

• Support the Director as a de facto Chief of Staff, helping troubleshoot operational issues and ensuring smooth running of the service.
• Identify opportunities to improve governance, planning and performance processes.
• Ensure lessons learned from audits, performance reviews and feedback loops are embedded.
• Promote a strong performance culture across the team.
• Stay abreast of best practice in governance, impact measurement and performance management.

Your job description is intended to reflect your main tasks and areas of work but is not exhaustive. Changes may occur over time, and you will be expected to agree any reasonable changes to your job description that are commensurate with your banding and in line with the general nature of your post. You will be consulted about any changes to your job description before these are implemented.

About You

The Church of England is for everyone, and we want to reflect the diversity of the community the Church serves across the whole country. Therefore, while of course we welcome all applications from interested and suitably experienced people, we would particularly welcome applicants from UK Minoritised Ethnicities (UKME)/Global Majority Heritage (GMH) and other underrepresented groups.

Essential – Knowledge & Experience

• Strong understanding and proven experience of governance in regulated and/or charity environments.
• Experience designing or managing KPIs, performance frameworks or impact assessment models.
• Experience of risk management and audit processes.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to interpret both qualitative and quantitative data.
• Experience of business planning and objective setting cycles.
• Experience producing performance reports for senior stakeholders.
• Experience working across organisational boundaries to align planning, data and performance frameworks.
• Experience managing strategic relationships with operational delivery teams (e.g., housing, customer service, or similar).
• Understanding of how data informs long term service planning, particularly in environments with complex customer journeys.
• Strong experience of business case or investment case development and design.
• Experience working in a customer focused, operational and values driven environment.

Essential – Skills & Abilities

• Excellent organisational and planning skills, with a commitment to keeping processes simple.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to accuracy.
• Able to translate data and performance information into clear, actionable insights.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, including influencing and supporting senior leaders
• Confident facilitating meetings, governance forums and cross team processes.
• Able to manage multiple priorities and deadlines and used to having oversight of multiple work streams across different teams.
• Exceptional communication skills, written and verbal, including the ability to influence stakeholders and colleagues

Highly Desirable

• Experience working in a regulated financial, housing or charity environment.
• Familiarity with data visualisation tools (e.g. Power BI).
• Understanding of service design or operational improvement methodologies.

For further information please contact:

Ciara Lynn

Lead Sourcing Specialist

Application Close Date: 18th September