Senior Planner WCPD

West Coast Partnership Development is the trusted partner of the Department for Transport (DfT) who are working towards creating and implementing the operations for High Speed 2 Ltd (HS2). We will design, develop and mobilise the high-speed service operations which will deliver benefits including more capacity, quicker journey times and a step-change in customer experience.

We are excited to present an opportunity to join the PMO team as the Senior Planner on an 18-month Fixed Term contract. This is chance to join a small, high calibre team working on once in a lifetime programme – launching HS2.

As a small organisation, WCPD is agile, meaning all our staff have a direct impact on the success of the company and are expected to contribute to the ongoing development and improvement of the business.

The Senior Planner is responsible for leading on Planning activities for West Coast Partnership Development, ensuring programme coherence and control and assuring the deliverability of individual projects and overall programme. Responsible for challenging planning and project assumptions to ensure appropriateness and remove optimism bias and/or inefficient delivery to ensure value for money and deliverability.

Lead the delivery of monitoring and control of WCPD programme to provide oversight and guidance to WCPD Heads of and Directors to ensure engagement and timely delivery of key milestones and Business Plan Commitments BPCs. Ensure Senior Leadership Team have appropriate information to be able to monitor programme delivery.

Embed a culture of planning good practice across the organisation. Define and maintain WCPD planning standards, expectations and good practice. Ensure compliance, identify areas for development, foster continuous improvement and innovation. Manage the planning and reporting team to ensure a professional approach to planning and reporting is implemented using specialised tools and techniques.

• Lead the provision of programme management and reporting systems for the business, including the identification, licensing and maintenance to deliver appropriate capabilities and resilience.
• Ensure project schedules are appropriately baseline and updated to deliver a robust level of project control and reporting, including to the WCPD Executive.
• Lead the development of programme reporting, ensuring appropriate processes and detail to varied stakeholders, including both internal and external stakeholders.
• Ensure programme and project schedules are compliant with contractual and any other requirements.
• Lead the development, implementation, embedding and update of project and programme planning processes and procedures, ensuring the comply with good practice standards.
• Ensure WCPD has the ability to collate schedule information to enable accurate records of programme history to be accessed and support any business or programme assessment and performance reviews.
• Produce scenario plans to support future programme requirements & options.
• Lead, manage and develop the Planning team, ensuring it delivers to business expectations, provides appropriate levels of resources and skills, and be responsible for the development and wellbeing of the team.
• Input to overall performance, approach and planning of the PMO Directorate as a member of the senior PMO team.
• Ensure inputs to, and outputs of the WCPD schedules are accurate and reflect the latest planning assumptions and baselines.
• Lead the WCPD time sheeting process and its outputs to the finance team on a periodic basis, a critical task in the management of business finances and reporting.

• Excellent knowledge and experience of project planning and control disciplines.
• Knowledge and understanding of…