About the job

Job summary

This vacancy is being recruited by Global Resourcing Agency on behalf of the Home Office. If you wish to enquire further and obtain a Candidate Pack for the role please email ; HomeOffice-CISO@global-resourcing.com  

With a budget of £20.3bn and over 45,000 employees, the Home Office is responsible for some of the most critical, demanding and life-saving work in society. Our mission is fundamentally important: to keep Britain’s streets safe and its borders secure. We lead on immigration and passports, drugs policy, crime policy, counter-extremism and counterterrorism and work to ensure visible, responsive and accountable policing in the UK. The challenges the Department faces are significant and can change rapidly in the global environment in which we operate, making us one of the most exciting and stimulating Departments to work in.

At the heart of our service delivery is our Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) function. Home Office DDaT is delivering technology services and change programmes for the wider Home Office and is recognised as being one of the most complex public sector Digital, Data and Technology operations anywhere globally. At any one time, our DDaT function enables the delivery of more than 300 complex change programmes, including Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) programmes, and maintains hundreds of mission critical systems including the “always on” national Border Force, Visas, Immigration and Law Enforcement IT platforms.

Central to all of this work is our ability to ensure that our systems are safe, secure and resistant to advanced and ever-changing threats. Occupying the role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and reporting to the Chief Digital Data and Technology Officer, you will develop and embed world class cyber security across our organisation and engage with a wide range of incredible stakeholders as a critical member of the DDaT senior leadership team.

Job description

Using your expertise as a security thought leader, you will:

• Implement the departmental cyber security strategy, ensuring it is aligned with the National Cyber Security Strategy and representative of the requirements of department stakeholders.
• Implement enterprise strategy, approach, and processes to reduce information security risks and enable services to the department to be delivered effectively. 
• Establish, maintain, and implement appropriate strategy, standards, controls and policies to protect information assets and technologies across the Home Office family, and drive compliance with Government policy, standards, regulatory requirements and legislation. 
• Be the department’s advisor for cyber risk within its own business operations and be responsible for bringing together the department’s approach to its own cyber and information security. 
• Be responsible for cyber security operations in the department.
• Be Senior Reporting Officer for the Cyber Security Programme and any department-level cyber security activity, including shaping the strategy and the business case and being accountable for the execution and delivery of workstreams, including the delivery of those capabilities into live running.
• Drive beneficial security change into the business through the development or review of architectures and attendance/guidance to governance boards.
• Maintain the department’s security assurance strategy and deliver advice and guidance on the operation of the security assurance process.
• Work closely with a wide variety of stakeholders across the Home Office and wider Government, to design, deliver and run the central cyber security protective monitoring capability and standards.
• Lead, build and inspire a high performing cyber security team of over 150 people.

Person specification

Using your expertise as a security thought leader, you will:

• Implement the departmental cyber security strategy, ensuring it is aligned with the National Cyber Security Strategy and representative of the requirements of department stakeholders.
• Implement enterprise strategy, approach, and processes to reduce information security risks and enable services to the department to be delivered effectively. 
• Establish, maintain, and implement appropriate strategy, standards, controls and policies to protect information assets and technologies across the Home Office family, and drive compliance with Government policy, standards, regulatory requirements and legislation. 
• Be the department’s advisor for cyber risk within its own business operations and be responsible for bringing together the department’s approach to its own cyber and information security. 
• Be responsible for cyber security operations in the department.
• Be Senior Reporting Officer for the Cyber Security Programme and any department-level cyber security activity, including shaping the strategy and the business case and being accountable for the execution and delivery of workstreams, including the delivery of those capabilities into live running.
• Drive beneficial security change into the business through the development or review of architectures and attendance/guidance to governance boards.
• Maintain the department’s security assurance strategy and deliver advice and guidance on the operation of the security assurance process.
• Work closely with a wide variety of stakeholders across the Home Office and wider Government, to design, deliver and run the central cyber security protective monitoring capability and standards.
• Lead, build and inspire a high performing cyber security team of over 150 people.

We are seeking someone with significant experience of successful cyber security delivery and management in a large, diverse, matrixed organisation.  As a CISSP/CSIM qualified professional or equivalent, you will have significant experience of the latest information security approaches and best practice. Your diverse stakeholder engagement skills and thought leadership will drive a culture change that brings risk and assurance awareness to the heart of our organisation.

Your work will play a crucial role in the security of one of the major bastions of our society and ensure that you are recognised as a leader in your field at the highest levels within both Government and the cyber and information security industry.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £115,000, Home Office contributes £31,050 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

For more information or to apply please contact 0208 2531806 or email on HomeOffice-CISO@global-resourcing.com to arrange a conversation with Lauren French.

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.