About the job

Job summary

The British Army is undergoing the most radical transformation in the last 20 years; through its ‘Future Soldier’ programme, the Army is driving modernisation and reform to ensure that it is fit for the challenges of the future. The Army is thinking differently about emerging threats, how to deal with them and the structure and equipment that is needed to succeed.

If you want to be a part of this and work within the Civil Service Operational Delivery Profession to enable the Army to achieve this, then read on. 

To achieve the ambitions of ‘Future Soldier’, the Army has designed its operating model to drive modernisation and adaptation to enable the development of the Army of tomorrow; through its Strategic Headquarters based in Andover, Defence Strategy is translated into direction for the Army across its formations, with the appropriate levers, to focus and achieve the successful delivery of both its current and future operational outputs and requirements.  

Functional leadership is at the heart of the Army’s operating model which sees both Military and Civil Service experts providing leadership and assurance around their relevant areas of responsibility. These functional experts provide a fundamental role supporting and enabling the Army to develop its strategies and goals for the future and deliver their current outputs. 

One of the Army’s most critical functions is the Business Management Function. This function delivers the strategic planning, management and delivery of all Workforce and Business Services critical to the Army’s ‘whole force’ organisation of over 100,000 made up of employees from across the Regular Army, Reserve Army, Civil Service and Contractors. In addition, it is charged with driving an agenda of continuous business improvement and reform to enable the Army to operate efficiently and effectively within the Defence enterprise.

The Business Management Function is currently under review with the aim of transforming the business services and capabilities it provides in addition to ensuring that those within the function have the knowledge and skills they require to deliver a professional service. As a function that forms part of the the CS Operational Delivery Profession (the largest of all Government Professions), the review is also seeking to align to the ODP profession career pathway and extensive Learning and Development offer to aid progression and development of its talent to achieve a sustainable CS function for the future.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Job description

What will the successful candidates be doing? 

With a post based at one of the Army’s Strategic Headquarters in Andover, Aldershot and Northern Ireland you will collaborate with colleagues from across the Finance, HR and Commercial professions to deliver strategic planning, management and delivery of all corporate workforce and business services to some of the Army’s most senior leaders.

As an experienced senior business manager and through the leadership of a small team of Civil Servants you will deliver:

• Workforce and resource planning (with some financial management oversight responsibilities) to meet the Army’s Strategic priorities and Command Plan, including support to workforce change, transformation and efficiency programmes and initiatives.
• Workforce advice and guidance to employees and their managers to enable high levels of engagement, attendance and performance and to grow and nurture talent and skills.
• Workforce financial management (including pay, allowances and reward) governance, assurance and compliance supporting executive level boards and performance reporting drawing from insights, data and MI.
• Improvements to the culture and lived experience of the workforce, including performance management, reward and recognition processes.
• The delivery of Business Services including corporate administrative support, management of IT services, assets and access and business continuity planning.
• Apply a structured change management approach and methodology in support of continuous improvement striving to develop and achieve excellence in support of business services and capabilities.

Person specification

These roles require confident, creative and strategic leaders with a record of success.

They will have the ability to bring together expertise and practical delivery focus that drives results and be a role model for excellence in inclusive and professional leadership across the Business Management function. Ideally you will have experience workforce services and business administration and strong awareness of financial and HR practices. In your personal statement please provide evidence of how you demonstrate:  

 Essential

• Excellent oral and written communication skills to provide and receive complex, sensitive and often controversial information to stakeholders in support of decision making (particularly through business case development and implementation).
• Ability to navigate uncertainty and engage, influence and negotiate with a wide variety of senior stakeholders effectively, including delivering difficult messages.
• Capability to coordinate multiple workstreams and plan over short, medium and long-term timeframes and adjust business and resource (including finance) planning requirements accordingly.
• Strategic thinking – ability to anticipate and resolve problems before they arise and take decisions on difficult and contentious issues where there may be several courses of action.
• Delivered continuous improvements or change to improve business processes or services.
• Be able to respond to sudden unexpected demands, prioritising your work and that of others.
• Line management experience and leadership skills to support, develop and motivate a team, ensuring effective delivery and a positive working culture.

 Desirable

• Experience of project and programme management.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £57,670, Ministry of Defence contributes £15,570 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, Ability and Experience.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and the selection process will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Ability.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process at Sift:

Leadership

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process at Interview:

Leadership
Delivering at Pace
Communicating and Influencing

At Application:

Submit evidence (no more than 250 words) against the CS Leadership behaviour.

Candidates will be required to provide CV details to include: job history and qualification details.  Submit a Statement of Suitability (no more than 1000 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

Candidates will be required to complete the following online tests:

• New Civil Service Verbal Test
• New Civil Service Numerical Test

Where a large number of applications are received, an initial sift will be conducted based on the evidence you provide in support of the Leadership behaviour. Your CV and statement of suitability will only be reviewed if you are successful at this initial sift.

At Interview:

- Deliver a 5 minute presentation (without the use of visual aids) to the panel. Details of the presentation will be confirmed as part of the invitation to interview.

- The interview panel will then assess you against the essential criteria using a blend of behaviour and experience based questions. The specific behaviours tested at interview will be Leadership, Delivering at Pace and Communicating and Influencing.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk .

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

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

Security

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.