Head of Programme Management Office (PMO)

Are you an experienced leader in the PMO space, passionate about driving transformative change at an enterprise level? Do you want to shape and embed effective change management practices within a high-impact public sector organisation?

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) plays a vital role in enabling government organisations to access innovative, efficient, and cost-effective solutions. At the forefront of digital transformation, CCS drives initiatives that enhance public procurement, delivering exceptional value and supporting public sector innovation. Through its Digital & Data Services directorate, CCS is building a world-class capability to revolutionise how the public sector approaches change.

As the Head of Portfolio Management, you will take a leading role in establishing and embedding a newly formed function within CCS. This critical position will be accountable for the monitoring, governance, and reporting processes for a diverse portfolio of change across People, Process, Technology, and Data. You will oversee enterprise-level transformations, ensuring adherence to governance frameworks and alignment with CCS’s strategic objectives.

This pivotal role requires strong leadership and collaboration across internal Digital Teams, Portfolio & Investment Management, and wider business leaders. You will play a key part in CCS’s digital directorate transformation programme, shaping how effective change is managed and delivered within the organisation.

Key Responsibilities:

• Championing the use of best practice project management standards and processes.
• Supporting and maintaining the agreed budgets for projects and/or programmes and forecast actual costs against them in partnership with the Project Manager and Finance Business Partner
• Managing the PMO team and supporting the Project Manager in the identification, recruitment, development, deployment and reassignment of resources throughout the project lifecycle.
• Mandating and monitoring the project team on the use of appropriate tools and techniques for managing stakeholder relationships. Providing assurance to the Head of Projects on the effectiveness of stakeholder management within Projects Establish and maintaining the project processes and standards for managing risks and issues.
• Providing assurance to the project manager on the effectiveness of Risk and Issue management arrangements.
• Ensuring appropriate governance is in place across projects in readiness for  external reviews e.g. Gateway Reviews at appropriate points in the project lifecycle. Monitoring and reporting on the effectiveness of controls and ensure that recommendations from external reviews are acted upon.
• Establishing and operate project controls on behalf of the project manager, reporting on project progress and status to appropriate bodies. Identify common capabilities and opportunities for linking up, re-using and  sharing of methods and resources between projects and programmes.
• Ensuring learning from experience is disseminated across the organisation.
• Identifying, developing and sharing best practice project management processes, tools and templates and benchmarks against industry standards. Providing direction and guidance to the project team.

At CCS, we’re revolutionising how the public sector embraces change—and we want you to lead the way. Join us to establish and grow our PMO, ensuring it operates effectively, drives innovation, and delivers real value. This is your chance to shape a new function, spearhead impactful initiatives, and make a meaningful difference in government procurement and beyond.

Additional Information:

Inclusion is embedded throughout the organisation, in our thought processes, in our strategy, in our business processes and in our governance. Inclusion requires action, to ensure people are included who might otherwise be excluded or marginalised, and ensuring a culture that fosters a true sense of belonging. Being an inclusive employer means that all colleagues, at every level of the organisation, have to make a choice to be inclusive, and this will be our norm.

We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging.