About the job

Job summary

Are you an outstanding operational leader?  If having a positive impact on Children’s lives, being an inspirational leader and being at the forefront of organisational change drives you then this could very well be the perfect role for you.

As a Deputy Director within the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) you will be responsible for leading circa 2,700 of our 4,800 colleagues nationally, in the delivery of Child Maintenance Services to more than 2 million parents across the UK. These responsibilities include driving optimal levels of performance across the multiple product lines that form part of the CMS operation. You will look for opportunities to improve; leveraging your experience in telephony, back office, performance analysis, process improvement and people development.

Job description

The Applications & Maintenance Director is a key operational leadership role, managing across 2 Senior leader roles and accountable for leading (circa) 2000 colleagues across all 7 CMS sites, ranging from Falkirk to Plymouth. ​

This large/complex leadership role includes successfully landing several key portfolios including accountability for CMS Applications and the adoption of digital channels, together with overall Case Maintenance (the largest part of CMS), Self-Serve and Telephony.

CMS are currently undertaking large scale operational service transformation. The transformation 
journey covers:

• Service Transformation – improving and enhancing the services we offer
• Organisational Transformation – How best to set up to support the service Transformation
• Digital Transformation – Changes to our digital tools to support both service and organisational 
  transformation.
  
  

A key function of this role is to lead Applications and Maintenance through major change / transformation, including the implementation of the organisational redesign.

Responsibilities also include operational management and detailed understanding of the CMS telephony service, driving up performance, efficiency, and customer service through improved colleague engagement.

This is a demanding and stretching role and the candidate should have experience of change leadership skills in a complex telephony based operational environment.
The role is a key part of the Operational Leadership Team responsible for making key strategic and operational decisions for CMS

Person specification

​Essential Criteria:​

• Strong leadership skills and significant operational experience of leading in a large, complex telephony-based role and of working at pace in a fast-changing environment​​
• An exceptional and inspirational leader, with the capacity to enable cultural change and the ability to connect with people at all levels, across a large, nationally dispersed team. A resourceful leader with a proven track record of making a strong personal impact, demonstrating resilience to deliver against key performance measures timeously and accurately​​
• Experience of developing people, increasing capability and driving business improvement through utilising performance and talent management frameworks​​
• A clear record of success of strong collaboration and influencing skills with her stakeholders to successfully implement business transformation and change. This includes digital transformation, across multiple teams and business processes​
• An experienced communicator demonstrating personal accountability through periods of change. Able to create a culture of inclusivity, inspiring and motivating teams to be fully engaged in their work and dedicated to their role, clear on expectations and responsibilities​​
• Strategic thinker, can envisage the future state and the actions and plans to achieve these objectives.​

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 average employer contribution of 27%

Things you need to know

Selection process details

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

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process outlined below:​​​

A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years;​​​

Three statements (maximum 500 words each) answering the 3 pre-defined questions (below), explaining why you want to work for DWP in this role; how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience providing evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.​​

1. Describe a time when you needed to improve the operational effectiveness of your team. How did you go about doing so? What were the major decisions you had to make? ​

2. High-performing organisations usually have senior leaders who are drivers of continuous improvement. Give us a specific example of how you have motivated employees to achieve excellence. ​

3. Given the significant organisational and cultural transformation that DWP are currently experiencing, how will you motivate staff during the transition period? ​

For further information on the role and the application process please see the candidate pack attached to this advert.

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 security 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.