Deputy Director, Senior Civil Service HR
Home Office
Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 22nd December 2024
Details
Reference number
Salary
Job grade
Contract type
Business area
Type of role
Senior leadership
Working pattern
Number of jobs available
Contents
Location
About the job
Job summary
The Home Office’s mission is to build a safe, fair, and prosperous UK through its Outcome Delivery Plan: reducing crime, strengthening Homeland Security, legal migration and the border and tackling illegal migration. We deliver our outcomes through three strategic shifts: building greater resilience, applying a system thinking approach and harnessing data and technology.
Home Office HR is a key enabler of this mission and strategy with five strategic pillars driving our work: an engaged, motivated, and productive workforce; collaborative expert leadership and management; building a diverse and inclusive organisation; a flexible and interoperable workforce; and an improved employee experience. As a member of ExCo, Corporate and Delivery Group and head of the HR Profession in the Home Office, the Chief People Officer ensures alignment of the people agenda with the Home Office mission and the Government People Group priorities.
The Deputy Director, Senior Civil Service HR (SCS HR) post is a key leadership role within the Home Office HR Function, operating right across the Drive, Develop, Deliver model. The role provides an exciting opportunity for a strategic HR professional to lead our SCS HR Team in supporting and developing the most senior leaders in our organisation.
The Senior Civil Service HR Team provides strategic and tactical support to the most senior leadership cadre within the Home Office, encompassing the SCS joiner, mover, and leaver employee life cycle. The role holder will lead the team to provide key professional advice to this senior cadre on a range of complex workforce management and recruitment related issues, both within the Department and across the wider Civil Service.
Job description
The role holder will lead the team in developing a deep understanding of the SCS cadre across the Department and drive improvements across all elements of the employee lifecycle, most notably in recruitment, talent, and performance management. In partnership with the Chief People Officer, the role holder will lead the redesign and operation of the Senior Leadership Committee and Executive Talent Board, both chaired by the Permanent Secretary, as the key governance forums with oversight of the SCS cadre. The role holder will work closely with business facing HR Deputy Directors, each of whom partner the Home Office Directors General, and will also lead the Chief People Officer and HR Directors’ Private Office.
This is a new and highly influential role, the key requirements of which are excellent stakeholder engagement skills, the ability to build trust, and resilience.
Key responsibilities:
- Leading the newly created SCS Team (20 FTE); consulting and engaging on the scope and set up of a premium end to end service; and leading the transition to a new delivery model for SCS HR. Key elements in scope for consideration within the Team’s remit are (within the context of SCS): recruitment, talent, performance management, development, reward and casework.
- Providing strong, visible leadership for this new service focused on two user groups, the Permanent Secretaries / ExCo, and SCS members themselves. Leading highly effective, business / end user focused teams across the range of SCS related areas, providing direction, motivation, and leadership to ensure the teams reach their maximum potential.
- Maintaining and continuously developing SCS specific policies and transforming processes through automation to deliver high-quality professional support.
- Providing leadership of the Chief People Officer and HR Directors’ Private Office. Driving co-ordination of all incoming HR commissions and approvals effectively, often from the Permanent Secretary and Ministers, as well as the wider Civil Service HR community, being mindful of the high profile and sensitive political context within which we operate. Ensuring the Chief People Officer and HR Directors are given the highest calibre support to enable the effective and efficient running of the HR function.
- Developing an in depth understanding of the Home Office’s SCS cadre and leading the team to work collaboratively across HR and the wider Department to shape business direction and strategy across the range of SCS workforce management issues, ensuring this is aligned to business requirements at a time of major change.
- Playing a leading role in the effective governance of the SCS cadre within the Home Office and across Government by leading the agenda of the Home Office Senior Leadership Committee and Executive Talent Board to focus on developing a high performing SCS cadre; and contributing to the shape of a common SCS HR model and service model (as appropriate) across the Shared Service Synergy Cluster.
- Build relationships with senior customers and stakeholders across the Home Office, particularly the Permanent Secretaries and their Private Office, Ministerial and SPAD offices, and Cabinet Office.
- In collaboration with business facing HR Deputy Directors, identify and implement career and development interventions (for example, executive coaching) for SCS members.
- As a member of the HR Senior Leadership Group, proactively lead the wider HR function.
Person specification
Essential criteria
The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability and behavioural approach to a high standard against the following key criteria:
- Experience of designing and implementing a premium service offer, with a sharp focus on customer experience and continuous improvement.
- A strong record of successfully delivering outcomes in a VIP / premium service environment.
- The ability to build, maintain and manage high trust, complex relations with senior customers (and their Private Offices), with the confidence and credibility to challenge where necessary.
- Experience of managing conflict resolution at senior levels (e.g. Board).
- Experience of building a data (quantitative and qualitative) driven capability that informs and drives workforce strategy, workforce planning, individual and organisational development, and associated action plans.
- Strong people leadership skills, with a track record of developing, leading, coaching, and motivating multi-disciplinary teams and driving a diverse and inclusive working culture.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working closely with Board level executives.
Qualifications
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
Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online, no later than 23:55hrs on 22nd December 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.
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 : Steve Jubb
- Email : stephen.jubb@homeoffice.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : HORCSCSRecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk
Further information
Civil Service Commission,
Room G8,
1 Horse Guards Road,
London,
SW1A 2HQ.
