The Office of Government Property (OGP) leads the Government-wide Property Function, setting the strategy and standards and leading on a number of Government and public sector-wide programmes. We also lead the Property Profession of 7,000+ professionals across Government, ensuring we have the right skills and rewarding career pathways.
The public estate is vast, with a diverse range of assets including offices, hospitals, prisons, courts, warehouses, railways, airways, homes, barracks, ports, job centres, test centres, schools and many more. There are over 300,000 recorded properties, worth over £200 billion. The estate plays an essential role in supporting excellent frontline public services, as well as productive and effective administration.
OGP’s Property Programmes team currently performs its role through multiple cross Government and public sector-wide programmes including Facilities Management Standards; Better Buildings; One Public Estate; and Estates Resilience and Sustainability. These support the Government Property Function’s goals of delivering a smaller, better, greener estate; and transforming places and services.
This team also enables delivery of sustainability improvements across the government estate, by setting strategy and standards, improving capability while providing guidance, tools and advice to accelerate and assist progress against sustainability commitments.
The postholder for the role of Programme Director - Estates Resilience & Sustainability will lead the transition of the current mandate to leading an Estates Resilience and Sustainability focus alongside other OGP teams including Strategy, FM and Data teams to deliver insights, guidance, strategy and coordination for this high profile, complex cross-cutting area.
Reporting into the Deputy Director for Property Programmes, the Programme Director is a senior strategic role in the Office of Government Property with overall responsibility for the domain of work. In addition to leading work within OGP, the role will provide leadership across the Government-wide Property Function and share learning and best practice across the wider public sector.
This position has a dual focus: supporting and challenging government departments to deliver their estate-related objectives, whilst actively advancing a programme of work under its own remit. It maintains vital links with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), which leads on the Government’s public sector decarbonisation agenda, and with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), responsible for Greening Government Commitments.
The role entails working collaboratively with diverse stakeholders to deliver strategy and operational plans. Its overarching aim is to ensure the government estate makes consistent progress against resilience and environmental sustainability objectives. A key policy focus is climate adaptation and decarbonisation—strategies that enhance estate resilience and underpin the capacity to deliver critical public services both now and into the future. Given the technical complexity of these issues, effective engagement is required across a broad spectrum of stakeholders both within and outside government—including senior officials, academia, think tanks, and industry.
As Programme Director, you will need to demonstrate strategic vision and the ability to foster effective collaboration across areas including operational property teams, sustainability, health and safety, professional development, commercial operations, digital sectors, and industry.
Key Responsibilities
The postholder will lead and coordinate this complex, cross-cutting agenda by:
* Providing Leadership and Strategic Oversight: Building and guiding a high-performing team to identify priorities, develop, and deliver an estates resilience and sustainability programme that aligns with and complements wider OGP initiatives. Ensuring programme objectives are achieved through effective oversight.
* Facilitating Inter-departmental Collaboration: Developing a taskforce approach to foster coordinated responses from government departments on priority estate challenges, specifically in resilience and sustainability.
* Enhancing Data Transparency and Reporting: Working with the Data team and departmental counterparts to establish standardised data reporting mechanisms, promoting transparency, and supporting informed decision-making.
* Engaging Stakeholders and Promoting Collaboration: Building trusted relationships across government and external sectors to influence agendas and foster shared commitment. Promoting the programme’s successes and broader property function achievements through active sharing of insights.
* Providing Policy and Technical Guidance: Advising government property teams to optimise use of existing tools such as the decarbonisation pathway and resilience frameworks, whilst contributing to the development of new guidance.
* Monitoring and Evaluation: Establishing robust systems to track programme progress and evaluate outcomes, ensuring interventions result in measurable cost savings and operational efficiencies.
* Managing Risks and Systemic Issues: Identifying, prioritising, and mitigating cross-government risks and issues. Keeping senior stakeholders briefed, updated, and engaged in risk management processes, involving specialists where necessary.
* Outward-facing Representation: Positioning the programme as a leader in the sector by sharing insights, fostering partnerships, and highlighting achievements across the public sector and industry.
* Building Capabilities: Enhancing departmental skills on property resilience and sustainability via targeted training, workshops, and promotion of best practices.
* Responding to Requests and Providing Advice: Addressing routine and ad hoc requests from within the property function, other departments, and parliamentary bodies. Offering evidence-based advice to ministers and senior officials across government.
The successful candidate will be adaptable, resilient, and capable of prioritising effectively within a fast-paced environment.
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