About the job

Job summary

Are you enthusiastic, resilient, a good team player and motivated to make a difference to public policy and develop in a public sector setting? Then look at this exciting opportunity to join the Safer Greener Buildings Group, established in response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017. Our Group is ground-breaking, fast-paced and a great opportunity to develop yourself and widen your experience dealing with complex and challenging delivery, stakeholder, programme and policy activity. The aim of the Group is to deliver an ambitious system of reform, as well as a historic cladding remediation programme, with the aim of ensuring high-rise buildings are safe, and that residents feel safe in them, now and in the future. Our work involves a high level of Ministerial engagement, public and media interest.

We particularly welcome candidates from an ethnic minority background and other underrepresented groups to apply, as we work to continually improve our ability to represent the places and communities we support through our work

Job description

We have three great roles on offer that sit in the centre of the work of the Group. Two roles sit within the Strategy and Portfolio Office division, a happy, inclusive team with a strong focus on professional growth, and the other role sits within our Strategic Finance Operations team that oversee the finances of the remediation portfolio.

G7 group financial performance lead

This opportunity is in the Group Performance and Analytics team, who bring together various threads of corporate reporting to drive strategic coherence across the group. You will be leading on bringing together the group-level resourcing strategy and picture, supporting senior decision making and working closely with portfolio-level finance teams. You will also have a key leadership role to play in building finance capability across the group. The postholder will be responsible for:

• Leading on fiscal events planning at group-level, working closely with portfolio teams

• Capability building across the group, including taking a leading role in building a finance community of practice

• Process and standards setting to promote robust financial controls across the group, ensuring that we submit high quality data returns to the centre

• Producing and presenting high-quality financial performance reports for senior leaders including exposing group-level trade-offs and issues

• Owning the financial structures map for the group and change control process, ensuring that it remains updated to reflect the changing nature of the work of the group

G7 Regulator sponsorship resource lead

This opportunity is in the Regulators Sponsorship Team, who design and deliver the functions, products and services to secure assurance from each of the regulators, that they, as stewards in the built environment, are effectively delivering against their strategic and annual priorities. You will be leading on regulator resourcing, the major part of our stewardship financial portfolio. You will bring together the detail of current and future resourcing strategies for the Building Safety Regulator and the Construction Product regulator to support strategic decision making. This role will span across elements of resource management; performance and delivery; senior challenge; briefing and reporting; and alignment with direction on stewardship.

The postholder role will be responsible for:

• Building and improving resource relationships across the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), and the Office of Product Safety and Standards (OPSS – the construction product regulator) to elevate understanding of requirements, unpack details of assumptions and forecasts, and better challenge efficiency of resource deployment to delivery.

• Understanding and improving resourcing requirements and performance governance across co-regulators of LABC and NFCC, working with policy teams and wider stakeholders in Home Office and capturing that data as part of our wider regulatory landscape.

• Managing and analysing resource risk and opportunities to each of those regulators aligning where necessary with wider system stewardship risks and across SGB resourcing.

• Bringing regulator details into departmental and portfolio reporting; advising on strategic resource management; contribute or lead relevant strategic reporting and departmental fiscal events; presenting to stewardship SMT, SARB, group SLT and wider. This will include future business cases, spending reviews, mains and supplementary estimates.

• Providing strategic resource advice on delivery direction across regulators including areas that will require ministerial attention and probing.

• Acting as senior lead on OPSS sponsorship, line managing one HEO sponsorship policy lead. This will require connecting with Construction Product division, understanding policy direction and interplay with OPSS. Advising on direction for the sponsorship relationship and governance more broadly.

G7 Portfolio Finance Reporting and Financial Management lead

This opportunity within the finance team will be a critical role for the SGB remediation portfolio’s relationship with HMT. Due to the size and structure of the team the postholder will have a breadth of insight and skillset, working together across the team to achieve quality relationships, products, processes, outputs and outcomes for the SGB remediation portfolio.

The postholder will be involved with in-year financial management, adding value to the numbers by providing insight and analysis.

The postholder role will be responsible for:

• Reporting the financial position at Strategic level to provide insight and highlight the key issues, risks and opportunities to the budget holders within the portfolio, with the ability to convey a message and "tell the story" around financial information.

• Develop a detailed understanding of the management reports audience and commission solutions

• Oversee the delivery of prompt, accurate management reports, translating data into meaningful outputs, with a breadth of reporting across internal and external environments

• Intelligent analysis of complex financial information, drawing out common themes and understanding linkages/dependencies

• Maintain a strong understanding of the overall financial position of assigned business areas. Provide incisive variance explanations of and clear summaries/interpretations for senior management

• Provide narrative for management reports using compelling and persuasive language to influence and challenge

• Continually check the wider internal and external environments to ensure that the management reporting meets end user needs and is presented in a medium to best convey key messages using continuous improvement philosophy/principles

• Undertake scenario modelling and provide a range of options to inform budget holder decisions

Person specification

The successful candidate will have knowledge, experience or skills including:

• Finance / resource management experience – candidate can demonstrate where they have managed and interrogated complex organisational resource data, challenging assumptions in requirements. They ideally would hold, or be working towards, a CCAB, CIMA or equivalent qualification (this is a desirable skill and not essential).

• Excellent Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Powerpoint, data analysis and data visualisation skills are essential.

• Excellent interpersonal skills, needing to navigate a diverse set of stakeholders, at senior levels, to secure the intelligence needed.

• Excellent communication skills, communicating effectively (written and verbally) with staff and stakeholders at all levels. The ideal candidate will be comfortable explaining complex financial and human resource issues in a clear and succinct way, and be able to process and simplify information to ensure key issues are clear and backed up with actionable recommendations.

• A self-starter with the confidence to develop ideas and lead their implementation, including the ability to continuously improve service which are built around business need.

• Ability to provide wider leadership across their teams and across the division.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £51,934, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £14,022 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

We are for everyone 

 

At DLUHC we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation. 

  

We would strongly recommend that applicants get in touch with the vacancy manager to find out more information about this role.  

 

We are for everyone 

 

DLUHC want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.  

 

Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).  

 

At application stage you will be asked to upload a CV document. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage. 

 

Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.  

 

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors. 

 

When writing your application, remember: 

• The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.  
• Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.  
• If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!) 

 

 

At sift, we will be assessing 

Experience (Lead Criteria): What relevant experience do you have in financial / resource management and how have you used this to inform and challenge delivery and performance

Behaviour: Communicating and Influencing

Behaviour: Working Together

Behaviour: Managing a Quality Service,

 

There is a 250 word limit per question. 

 

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements:    

Behaviours: Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Seeing the Big Picture, Changing and Improving 

Experience 

Strengths

The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.  

Candidates will be expected to deliver a presentation at interview stage, the details of which will be provided upon invitation. 

 

In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profile Elements: 

 

Behaviours: Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Managing a Quality Service, Seeing the Big Picture, Changing and Improving 

Experience: Yes

Strengths: Yes

 

We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs 

Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign. 

Grade 7 salary 

• The salary for this role is £51,934 (National). 
• For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If you apply for a role that requires a transfer of location, for example if you are transferring from London to a National location, your salary will be adjusted in accordance with our policy on transfer between HQ pay ranges. 

 
Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation’s terms and conditions.   

 

BENEFITS: 

Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018: 
Any move to DLUHC from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk 

For further information about the benefits available to DLUHC employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack. 

  

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION: 

• Leeds
• Birmingham
• Wolverhampton 
• Darlington* 

 

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role. 

*Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus (DEC) is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service.  

For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack. 

 

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES: 

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 29th January 2024 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall. 

Reserve List 
 
In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details in a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list. 

Candidate Pack Information 

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. 

Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the DLUHC candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules 

 

Internal Fraud Database 

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.  

For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

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). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.