The National Youth Agency is looking for a Programme Governance Lead.
Programme Governance Lead
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full-time - 37 hours per week
Salary: £55,000 - £65,000 per annum (dependent on experience and qualifications)
Location: Home-based in England with occasional travel for meetings, workshops, and team activities. Head Office is in Leicester.
What we do
As the national body for youth work, the NYA has a dual function. We are the professional statutory and regulatory body (PSRB) responsible for qualifications, quality standards, and safeguarding for youth work and services in England. In line with our charity mission and aims, we also champion youth work through research, advocacy, campaigns, and programmes.
We work in partnership and believe in collaborative leadership, listening to youth workers and the youth work sector so that we can understand their needs and respond to the challenges they face. We are ambitious for youth work and for young people and integrate youth voice and influence across our work
About the Role
We are looking for Programme Governance Lead to manage and oversee the successful delivery of all programmes/projects within the Programmes Directorate by establishing and leading consistent governance and assurance. The postholder will strengthen programme governance, reporting and risk management ensuring programmes are delivered by agreed methodologies and in a consistent manner.
Key Responsibilities
As our Programme Governance Lead, you will:
- Define, implement and maintain an agreed methodology for programme/project lifecycle governance.
- Chair programme/project boards and ensuring decisions, and actions are documented and actioned.
- Identify risks, issues and dependencies which are not captured by Programme Portfolio Leads. Ensure consistent risk management across projects and programmes. Proactively identify cross-programme/project risks and issues (including those not visible to project/programme leads), implement mitigations, and escalate risks/issues to the Director of Programmes and COO as required. Assess programme/project risks against the NYA risk register and update the register accordingly.
- Produce and present monthly programme governance reports at the Directorate Programme Board, providing clear portfolio-level insight (milestones, deliverables, RAG status, KPIs, benefits, and financial/resource assumptions) to enable effective senior decision-making and assurance.
- Design and run governance routines (e.g., project start-up, weekly/monthly reviews, decision logs, change control) and support high-quality papers and actions for directorate governance forums; ensure timely escalation of material risks, issues and decisions to the COO.
- Support teams to evidence compliance with funder/contractual requirements; ensure appropriate documentation, approvals and version control are in place and accessible.
- Implement and maintain a robust lessons-learned process (during and post-delivery) and ensure findings are integrated into future programmes/projects through updated standards, templates, training and assurance checkpoints.
Why Work for NYA?
- NYA operates as a people-focused organisation, prioritising the well-being and needs of its employees.
- NYA offers an exceptional flexible working approach which encourages our team to balance professional responsibilities with their personal life.
- A remote based team, spread across England, fostering inclusivity and diverse talent. Despite geographical distances between team members, NYA maintains a highly motivated and connected team through the optimisation of digital tools.
- NYA is committed to supporting the continual personal and professional development of our team and helping them achieve their ambitions.
- We provide 25 days leave plus 8 days, life assurance scheme, 5% employer pension contribution and a comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme via Spectrum.life with unlimited specialist support available to all NYA employees.
Closing date: 23:59 Friday 3rd July 2026.
N.B. We would encourage you to apply as soon as possible as we may close the vacancy early if we receive a sufficient number of suitable applications.
Interviews: W/C 13th July OR W/C 20th July
Interested?
If you would like to find out more, please click the apply button. You will be directed to our website to complete your application for this position.
The National Youth Agency is an equal opportunities employer.
At NYA our inclusive culture means that we embrace individual differences and understand that we need a diverse team to achieve our organisations mission.
We wish to recruit candidates from all backgrounds to ensure our team reflects the rich diversity of the communities we serve. We encourage applications from anyone regardless of disability, ethnicity, heritage, gender, sexuality, religion, socio-economic background and political beliefs but we particularly welcome applications from global majority candidates and those from other minoritised ethnic groups in the UK as they are currently underrepresented in our team.
Please note: We use AI detector software, so applications or CV’s with high levels of AI generated content may be disregarded. We understand that AI tools can offer support to candidates who have learning differences, which is why we will accept applications with some AI assistance.
No agencies please.
Are you looking for an exciting and new challenge? Are you passionate about supporting children, young people and families? If so, look no further!
Are you passionate about helping children, young people, and families achieve positive change? We are looking for a compassionate and motivated Administrative Worker to join our team. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys working with Children young people and families, thrives in a collaborative environment, and is committed to safeguarding and improving outcomes for children.
We are seeking a part time, Administration Assistant to work across our Best Start Family Hubs within Sandwell. This is a fantastic opportunity to become part of a passionate and committed team and be an active member of the wider Best Start Family Hub Network.
This role is ideal for someone who enjoys working with Children young people and families, thrives in a collaborative environment, and is committed to safeguarding and improving outcomes for children.
Car driver is preferred due to travelling across the whole of Sandwell when cover maybe needed.
Working pattern:
Monday to Friday with flexibility required for occasional evening and weekend work to meet the needs of the service.
Some key activities/objectives include:
- Provide a warm, friendly and approachable welcome, ensuring all individuals feel valued, respected and at ease.
- Arrange meetings, appointments, and events for visitors and external partners, ensuring all necessary facilities and health & safety requirements are in place.
- Support the Administration Lead and wider team to ensure accurate monitoring data is collected and reported on a quarterly basis, including case studies and service user feedback, in line with GDPR requirements.
- Support the safety and wellbeing of service users and visitors, including recognising and reporting safeguarding concerns and escalating appropriately in line with procedures.
- Ensure the hub is presentable at all times, including maintaining displays and preparing rooms in line with bookings and activities.
- Assist with signposting, logging requests and liaising with senior staff and project workers as required.
- Stock taking of resources to ensure that the hub is fully equipped with necessary items such as stationery and first aid supplies.
- Support the promotion of materials to engage communities, including newsletters, leaflets, notice boards, displays etc.
When completing your application please refer to your skills knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification, Job Description and Additional Information document (if applicable). This should be done with an understanding of the context of the service described.
Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible
Pay & Reward Framework
We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values. We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people.
For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay.
Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours. More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application.
Benefits
Workplace Offer: What it means for you
Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role any combination of these. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.
Barnardo's require colleagues to be UK residents, based in the UK and to complete their roles from within the UK (with the exception of colleagues providing Barnardo's services in Jersey and colleagues who live in the Republic of Ireland providing services in Northern Ireland)
- Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
- Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
- The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our Buy Your Leave scheme
- A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
- Service related sick pay from day 1
- Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
- Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
- Cycle2work scheme
- Interest free season ticket loans
- Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
- 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
- Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
- Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
- Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer
*T&C's apply based on contract
About Barnardo's
We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.
Our basis and values
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.