Head of the National Returns Progression Command
Home Office
Apply before 11:55 pm on Monday 11th November 2024
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Location
and Stoke-on-Trent.
About the job
Job summary
The National Returns Progression Command (NRPC) is the pivotal Home Office capability whose mission is to maximise the return of all immigration offenders (illegal entrants, overstayers, failed asylum seekers) through both enforced and voluntary returns whilst ensuring individuals are dealt with in a dignified manner, utilising a strong set of safeguards to identify and manage vulnerabilities.
The head of NRPC will play a vital leadership role in the Government's major transformation plan to overhaul the asylum system, ensuring in particular that various returns components are transformed and fit for purpose.
Job description
This work includes leadership of 4 strands of work to maximise asylum-related returns.
The on-going and core elements of the role involve the following
- Leading on detained returns – ensuring that return is progressed for individuals from point of detention through to removal, effectively clearing barriers to removal, and identifying and managing any vulnerabilities.
- Leading on Non-Detained case progression – ensuring the progression of individuals without permission to stay in the UK to an appropriate conclusion, either by removing barriers to return and tasking for enforcement action, or by signposting to other parts of the Home Office to regularise their status.
- Leading on the issue of 'third country returns', returning individuals to a country other than their country of origin.
- Leading on Family Returns - securing safe returns of families with children who have no lawful basis to remain in the UK.
- Leading on voluntary returns – ensuring support for individuals who wish to leave the UK voluntarily.
- Leadership of the central support functions – including management of finance, workforce planning, and secretariat functions, performance and assurance teams, and process, guidance and comms and engagement across the command.
Key additional responsibilities include:
- Managing and building relationships with a wide range of delivery partners including uniformed enforcement teams, the Foreign National Offender Returns Command, International Returns Services Command, Detention Services, Migration and Borders Policy, Asylum and Human Rights Operations and Customer Services.
- Line management of six Grade 6s and leadership and management of approximately 1,000 staff within the command, over 15 different locations.
- Providing wider leadership support to Immigration Enforcement and Returns Directorate as a whole and contributing to wider Home Office objectives.
- Managing a budget of just under £40m.
Person specification
Essential Criteria
- Working with Ministers and other political stakeholders to drive and deliver a transformation of public services; operating in a sharp political spotlight; be comfortable operating at pace in a relentless delivery environment; leading from the front; being comfortable with uncertainty and with the strong communication skills to frame realistic and tangible proposals and options in the highly complex environment of asylum and returns.
- A strong track record in inspiring, empowering and engaging leadership of large, diverse, geographically dispersed teams with clear uplifts in performance, engagement and able to attract and develop talent at every level of the organisation.
- Excellent written and oral skills, confident with Ministers and the most senior officials in framing transformation plans in a cogent and concise fashion; persuasive where further rationale or evidence is required and listening and responding to feedback from all levels of the organisation.
- Leading in a highly complex and sometimes contentious environment; balancing leading a large team; responding to new commissions; securing buy-in from senior colleagues; peers; stakeholders and others; delegating and empowering where appropriate but leading from the front when the circumstances necessitate it.
- The ability to plan, implement and monitor the delivery of stretching goals, identifying innovative ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the use of resources.
- Possess the ability to deliver results in a highly contentious environment where the need to deliver hard-edged results must be balanced with a wider set of equally important criteria (managing vulnerability, for example, and wider reputational factor) as is the case where individuals are detained for removal.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of leading work within the migration and borders and international cooperation landscape is desirable but not essential.
Benefits
- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Online Application
Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online, no later than 23:55 Monday 11th November 2024.
Provide some basic personal information;
- A CV - setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years;
- A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.
- Diversity Monitoring - as part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say'. See the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 (HTML) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information.
It is essential that in your written application you give evidence, using examples, of proven experience. These responses will be developed and discussed with candidates invited for interview.
Failure to submit both a CV and Supporting Statement will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.
For further information, please review the candidate pack.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.
Security
Nationality requirements
Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Helen Sheldon
- Email : helen.sheldon@homeoffice.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : horcscsrecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk