About the job

Job summary

The Home Office is one of the original great Departments of State. As such it is constantly evolving to ensure that it keeps pace with the changes in the communities it serves and that the people who work for the Home Office reflect the make-up of those communities, while having the up-to-date skills required to contribute effectively  progressing policy objectives. The role of the Home Office is fundamentally important: to keep Britain’s streets safe and its borders secure. Each and every member of Home Office staff plays a part in making that happen. With a budget of £14.7bn, the Home Office leads on immigration and passports, drugs and crime policy, counter-extremism and counterterrorism and works to ensure visible, responsive, and accountable policing in the UK. These issues are at the heart of the Government’s agenda.

Job description

As the Chief People Officer and Head of Profession, the successful candidate will lead the Home Office HR Function on all aspects of HR, including business partnering, expert services and delivery functions such as resourcing. As a member of both the Department’s Executive Committee and the Government People Group HR Executive Team, the Chief People Officer will partner closely with Permanent Secretaries and Directors General to enable the delivery of key organisational and Civil Service wide priorities, enabled by a strong, employee-centric HR function. The Chief People Officer is expected to manage a budget of c. £50m, provide strategic direction and role model inclusive leadership for c. 450 people, including 13 Senior Civil Servants

Person specification

You will bring a track record of leading a multi-disciplinary, corporate services HR function within a large, complex, diversified organisation with a proven ability to build high performing teams. Adept at managing senior stakeholder relationships, you will evidence strong influencing skills with both the confidence and the credibility to challenge at executive level. With a relentless focus on continuous improvement, you will be capable of driving the people aspects of technology-orientated, organisational transformation and you will be a credible operator across key HR subject matter, including organisation design, industrial and employee relations. You will demonstrate strong analytical skills as well as the flexibility and personal resilience to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in an environment of regular scrutiny by the media, the public and others.

For more details on the Essential criteria, please refer to the Candidate pack attached at the bottom of the page.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £97,000, Home Office contributes £26,190 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

If you are motivated by the opportunity to grip the challenges of delivering functions of national importance and social impact, we would like to hear from you.

For more information or for an informal discussion about the roles contact our advising consultants at GatenbySanderson; HOrecruitment@gatenbysanderson.com

Applications must be received by 23.55h on Wednesday 24th April 2024 by using the following link:  https://www.gatenbysanderson.com/job/GSe110610

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.