Project Leader Spring Memorandum

A government organization faces a significant financial and administrative challenge. With the start of a new administrative period, a coalition implementation program (CUP) is being developed, outlining the ambitions and policy priorities of the new college. At the same time, the organization faces the challenge of structurally balancing its financial position and providing the municipal council with sufficient opportunities to make substantive and financial choices.

The Spring Memorandum is the moment when these tasks converge. In the Spring Memorandum, the financial consequences of the CUP must be translated into an integrated multi-year financial perspective. The starting point is that all four annual tranches are structurally balanced. This requires sharp financial analyses, realistic estimates, a critical assessment of existing policy, and the development of concrete and implementable austerity measures.

A key challenge is that the necessary savings are not exclusively presented to the municipal council as a predefined package. The organization genuinely wants to empower the council to make choices. This requires various, substantively substantiated savings options, making both the financial effects and the social and organizational consequences transparent. The proposals must be sufficiently concrete and comparable to enable political deliberation and decision-making.

For this task, we are looking for an experienced, actively participating project leader who is responsible for the integral realization of the Spring Memorandum. The project leader combines solid substantive knowledge of municipal finance with experience in complex political-administrative processes. The project leader is explicitly not solely responsible for organizing and monitoring the process but also makes a substantial substantive contribution.

This includes analyzing financial issues, developing and assessing savings proposals, preparing financial scenarios, and writing parts of the Spring Memorandum. It is up to the project leader to organize and guide the process in such a way that a high-quality, financially substantiated, and administratively decision-ready Spring Memorandum is delivered within the available planning.

What you will do.

• Analyze financial issues
• Develop and assess savings proposals
• Prepare financial scenarios
• Write parts of the Spring Memorandum
• Establish an integrated project plan
• Organize a controlled realization process
• Translate policy ambitions from the CUP into financial proposals
• Critically review estimates and existing policy
• Develop concrete austerity measures
• Visualize financial returns, social effects, consequences for service provision, organizational feasibility, and implementation timelines of measures
• Develop financial scenarios and trade-off options
• Prepare financial justifications and explanations
• Report structured on progress
• Timely identify risks, bottlenecks, and necessary administrative choices
• Work closely with directors, program coordinators, financial advisors, business controllers, and other content-involved employees
• Bring together administrative ambitions, social effects, financial feasibility, and organizational implementability and coordinate with the involved client and management

What they ask

• Minimum 5 years of demonstrable work experience in municipal finance, planning & control, and/or financial-strategic advisory (this may also include consultancy experience)
• Demonstrable work experience as a project leader or ultimately responsible coordinator in the realization of complex municipal P&C products, such as a spring memorandum, framework memorandum, or program budget
• Demonstrable work experience with independently performing financial analyses, developing financial scenarios, and elaborating structural savings or redirection measures within a municipal organization
• Demonstrable knowledge of the Decree on Budgeting and Accountability of Provinces and Municipalities (BBV) and the municipal budgeting system
• Demonstrably available throughout the entire Spring Memorandum process

Desired skills.

• Demonstrable work experience in municipal planning & control and financial-strategic advisory
• Demonstrable work experience as a project leader in complex municipal P&C processes, including spring memorandums, framework memorandums, and program budgets
• Demonstrable work experience with developing and financially substantiating municipal savings and redirection proposals
• Demonstrable work experience with financially translating administrative ambitions and policy programs into a multi-year financial perspective
• Demonstrable work experience with administrative advisory within a municipal organization