The London Borough of Sutton is situated less than 30 minutes by train from Central London, with direct connections to London Victoria and London Bridge. Found in zone 5 with good transport links in and out of London, Sutton boasts award winning parks and open spaces, low crime rates, affordable housing and great schools. As well as high levels of resident engagement and satisfaction, providing quality services and success in addressing our financial challenges, whilst involving residents in key issues and high street changes.

Sutton is continuously investing in the health, wellbeing and education of our residents and the future generation, as set out in the “Ambitious for Sutton” corporate plan. We are home to the Royal Marsden Hospital and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together with the development of the London Cancer Hub, Sutton will be the world’s leading life-science district, specialising in cancer research and treatment. Our vision will create around 13,000 jobs while contributing £1.2bn to the UK economy each year, a vibrant community of scientists, doctors and innovative companies intended to deliver real benefits for cancer patients and drive economic growth. With the regeneration of the local areas with new homes and schools, Sutton is passionate about working closely with our residents and vulnerable groups to help them maintain their independence and create a balance between support and independent living.

The Council is seen as a driving force within the South London Partnership of five outer south west London boroughs focused on strategic growth, regeneration and investment. As we strive to improve our services and spaces for our residents as set out in the ‘Ambitious for Sutton’ corporate plan, Sutton aims to shape the future of the borough and adapt to the needs of its residents to make our Borough a great place to live, work and raise a family.

Programme Lead: Driving Transformation to Embed Our Families First Modelo

Over the past two years, Sutton has embarked on a significant and necessary journey of strategic transformation. This period has been defined by our proactive response to the government's  children and families reforms, whilst simultaneously navigating the complex challenges of increasing service demand and constrained financial resources. Our commitment remains to deliver the highest quality services and innovative practice for the children and families in our borough.

We have now arrived at a truly pivotal and exciting stage in this journey. The imminent "go live" date of 6th July for our new Families First Model marks a critical achievement. This model represents a fundamental shift in our approach, designed to create more cohesive, preventative, and outcome-focused services.

However, while reaching this milestone is a cause for celebration, the work is far from complete. To truly realise the vision and benefits of Families First, a substantial and focused effort is still required. We must ensure the model is deeply and effectively embedded across all services, and that we fully meet and exceed all the statutory and aspirational expectations set out in guidance from the Department for Education (DFE).

The Critical Role of the Programme Lead

We are therefore seeking a dynamic Programme Lead to join us until 31st March 2027. This individual will be instrumental in getting us "over the finishing line" by providing the strategic leadership, governance, and momentum required to fully operationalise and sustain the Families First Model. This is a highly visible and fundamental role, with key responsibilities including:

• Strategic Programme Management & Governance: Leading and overseeing all aspects of programme management tasks, ensuring the project remains on track, within scope, and aligned with strategic objectives. This includes managing risks, issues, dependencies, and resources across multiple workstreams.
• DFE Compliance and Reporting: Taking the lead on completing the mandatory quarterly returns to the DFE, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and demonstrating clear progress against reform expectations. This also involves working proactively to ensure the model achieves full compliance with DFE expectations, relevant national policy, and local guidance.
• Driving Learning and Development: Collaborating closely with internal  teams and managers to ensure the workforce's learning and development needs associated with the new practice model are met. This includes embedding new ways of working, skills, and cultural shifts required for success.
• System Readiness and Digital Transformation: Working in partnership with IT colleagues to ensure the necessary system readiness for robust, accurate recording, and reporting. A key focus will be preparing our infrastructure for the long-term, particularly for the full operationalisation of digital reporting capabilities from April 2027.
• Practice Embedding and Quality Assurance: Partnering with Heads of Service (HOS) to systematically embed the new practice model into day-to-day operations. This includes establishing and refining internal review mechanisms and quality assurance frameworks to monitor practice fidelity and drive continuous improvement.
• Co-production and Service User Engagement: Leading efforts to work effectively with service user groups—our children and families—to ensure their voices are central. This co-production approach will be key to shaping and refining our ways of working, ensuring the model is truly responsive to community needs.

Eligibility:

In order to be considered for this role you will need to meet the following criteria and you are asked to confirm that you meet this criteria in your application:

• Experience of best practice programme / project management methodologies, and evidence of having applied these to deliver complex and high profile projects and programmes. 
• Good understanding of the key issues for local authorities, Children’s Services and service users including the Governments Families First Partnership Programme
• Be a direct employee and currently be in a grade 9 or above role 
• Have agreement from your current line manager to be released from your current role (noting that backfill arrangements where appropriate are permissible). 

The post will report directly to Jackie McCarthy, Director of Children’s Social Care and Safeguarding, indicating the seniority and critical nature of the programmes this role will manage. The successful individual will be expected to operate with a high degree of autonomy, working with multi-disciplinary teams and stakeholder relationships across the Council and external partner agencies.

As an organisation that values and nurtures talent, we’re committed to helping you fulfil your potential and will offer you a supportive, friendly and collaborative environment to grow and develop your career and skills. We’re constantly striving to improve our ways of working so putting your ideas across however big or small; will be fully encouraged and supported by your colleagues and our dynamic and experienced management team.

Employees have access to a wide range of benefits to enable staff to achieve a work life balance, some of which include:

• A generous annual leave entitlement of 26-32 days plus bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time working hours apply) depending on service and grade 
• Enhanced Maternity, paternity, shared parental, adoption and dependents leave
• Two volunteering days per year
• Flexible Working - Smarter Working Scheme (dependent on the role) 
• Adjustable and agile working arrangements using Google Chromebooks
• Learning and development portal offering a range of courses
• Discounts on a range of local shops, restaurants, gyms and leisure centres
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• Bicycle loan facilities and cycle to work scheme
• Electric vehicle leasing scheme
• Confidential health & wellbeing and counselling support

Apply online outlining what skills, abilities and experience you can bring which makes you an ideal candidate for this role. Please refer to the requirements outlined in the job profile when completing your application and check your CV details have been uploaded correctly in the relevant sections.

We understand and recognise the benefits of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace and are embracing AI where appropriate, to boost our productivity and streamline how we deliver our Council services efficiently; to provide the best possible outcomes for our residents and communities. 
However, we reserve the right to reject applications where it is apparent that AI-generated content has been used in isolation and without personalised responses. At Sutton we value authenticity and are looking for individuals who can clearly demonstrate their own skills, experience and motivation for the role that they are applying for and embrace and demonstrate our PRIDE values.
Here at Sutton we have core values of Transparency and this is to be demonstrated during the application process and completion of the supporting statement and will be further tested at interview and selection stage for those who progress forward.

The closing date is given as a guide. We reserve the right to close this vacancy once a sufficient number of applications has been received, it is strongly advised that you complete and submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. 

As part of our award winning Diversity Programme we anonymise all applications received to reduce conscious and unconscious bias enabling every application to be reviewed on the knowledge, skills and experience shown in your application. We encourage our interview panels to be as diverse as possible (age, cultural, neurodiverse etc.) to reduce bias where possible. We are fully committed to removing barriers and enhancing the diversity of our workforce.

We are proud to be a diverse and welcoming Borough and we strive to create a workforce which reflects the community we serve, and instil a sense of belonging in our staff. We celebrate and respect differences and appreciate the value of having a diverse workforce, therefore we welcome applications from under represented groups.

To support our workers and their families we offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums and inclusive staff networks who help drive our diversity agenda.

We are also proud to be a disability confident employer and guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for a role. As an accredited London Living Wage Employer all our employees are guaranteed the London Living Wage regardless of their length or type of contract.

The UK has a points-based immigration system affecting EU and Non-EU workers and sponsorship requirements. We advise checking the GOV.UK website for right to work guidance. Sponsorship availability varies and is subject to eligibility requirements and budget limitations. As a result, we cannot guarantee sponsorship for all roles and will evaluate sponsorship requests on a case-by-case basis.