The newly established MHCLG unit is intended to help areas deliver planning that supports local objectives and priorities, and is seeking a digital head honcho to assist with this mission

Government’s newly created Office for Place is seeking a senior manager to develop and deliver the organisation’s digital programmes.

The non-departmental public body – which is focused on the planning sector and sits within the recently renamed Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government – is advertising a vacant position as head of digital placemaking tools. The Office for Place’s (OfP) GOV.UK page states that it will its “purpose is to make it easier for all neighbourhood communities, wherever they might be, to require what they find beautiful and refuse what they find ugly”.

To support this mission, a digital leader will be “responsible for the delivery of phase one of the OfP Digital Strategy”, before “scoping and bringing forward the next phases” of the plan. The aim of the strategy will be to “align OfP’s ambition with current delivery priorities within the planning digital space”, according to the job advert.

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The postholder will work closely with other senior managers, including the head of urban design, to help create “digital tools, including downloadable design code elements and similar products”.

The position also comes with a remit to support the wider executive leadership team and communications professionals to assist with “delivery of the OfP website ensuring that the needs of OfP and its core user base are reflected in the final website product”.

The role will involve “leading on the delivery of the design code digital library building on existing work around data standards to bring a product to market that can be used across the industry to create efficiencies in the process of coding”.

On a longer-term basis, the chosen applicant will be “working collaboratively across OfP and with key stakeholders to consistently identify opportunities for OfP in the digital space, and cement OfP’s reputation as both a credible and innovative expert-led voice within the planning and development sector”, the advert added.

The role will be based in Stoke-on-Trent, and comes with an annual salary of £51,934 to £61,562. Applications are open until 11.55pm on 3 September.

The position requires “experience of working in digital planning”, in either local or central government or the commercial sector. Also necessary will be “experience of design codes, and design more broadly, at the local authority level, and how digital tools can unlock barriers to well-designed places”.

“The Office for Place will be at the forefront of supporting councils and the wider sector to successfully implement government planning priorities,” the advert said. “This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a new organisation whose objectives are to: catalyse a fundamental change from within the planning sector and across all levels of government, communities, and the development, planning, and design industries, to secure the creation and stewardship of popular, healthy, beautiful, and sustainable places; help neighbourhoods, communities and public servants working on their behalf, to ask for and deliver new places, and manage existing places, to be popular, healthy, beautiful, and sustainable; [and] support public sector planners and the British design and development industries to be the best place makers in the world aided by improving UK and international data on happiness, health, popularity, and sustainability.”