A new government office is searching for its top team – and a permanent home in Stoke-on-Trent.

The Office for Place, which will work to ensure new housing developments across the country have good design, has launched a recruitment drive for an £80,000-a-year chief executive and other top officers.

After it was announced last year it would be based in the Potteries, the new organisation has been leasing desks at Stoke-on-Trent City Council's Civic Centre. But the Office for Place is set to move into a permanent headquarters in Stoke-on-Trent later this year.

The new roles will be the latest government jobs to come to Stoke-on-Trent, with hundreds of Home Office workers now based in the city. According to the latest government figures, there were 1,710 civil service workers in Stoke-on-Trent on March 31 this year, compared to 1,245 in 2021.

A Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "We are committed to keeping the Office for Place in Stoke-on-Trent, and work is already underway to find a permanent office location.

It is not yet known where the new office will be based, although they currently have desks at Civic Centre (Nub News).

"At the same time, there is ongoing recruitment for various roles, all of which will be based in the office."

According to the advert for the new Office for Place jobs, the organisation will develop evidence and tools 'to support the creation and stewardship of places that are beautiful, sustainable, popular, and healthy'.

As well as hiring its first chief executive, the Office for Place is also recruiting a head of finance and corporate services, head of digital placemaking tools, head of HR, procurement and project manager and four senior planner roles, all of which will be based in Stoke-on-Trent.

The chief executive will oversee the strategic and organisational development of the new public body, translating its high-level objectives into delivery plans, including a proposed new national accreditation scheme for design codes.

While the new officers are initially being recruited into the MHCLG, the Office for Place is due to become fully independent of the department this autumn.

It is not yet known where in Stoke-on-Trent the Office for Place will be permanently based. The recently created Home Office jobs are currently based in Two Smithfield in the city centre, but will eventually move into new building on the Smithfield development.

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