About the job

Job summary

We are looking to appoint a Deputy Director to lead communities policy for our Communities and Integration Directorate. This is a wide-ranging, influential and important role in DLUHC, with strong links to communities themselves, their representatives, and the rest of Whitehall.

Job description

You’ll be working in a specialised and sensitive environment leading a team of committed policy and engagement experts (around 30, with 3 direct reports) who work across a broad set of policies and programmes. In recent times the team has delivered projects as varied as a permanent national Monument to the Windrush Generation; the Colin Bloom report on government’s work with faith communities; DLUHC’s Community Champions scheme to tackle the disproportionate impact of Covid-19; our work to welcome new arrivals to the UK from Afghanistan, Hong Kong and elsewhere; and much more. The team has recently worked closely with faith communities to understand and mitigate the impact of the Israel-Hamas war on people in the UK.

To succeed, you will need to build strong connections with other senior leaders in the Integration and Communities directorate – both on policy development and corporate leadership. You will also need to form strong links with several other parts of DLUHC, and the rest of Whitehall, to deliver work that relies on policy teams and colleagues beyond your immediate division. You will need to be confident working with external partners in the communities sector and with very senior faith leaders.

Key accountabilities

• Shaping the future agenda of the team and its policies, providing the challenge and oversight required to ensure a constant focus on successful delivery of the wide range of work it leads on.
• Specific areas of work include:

o Faith Policy, working directly to HMG’s Faith Minister and collaborating across government to respond to the Colin Bloom Review as well as advising on significant national events like the Coronation

o Parks and Green Spaces, working with partners such as the Green Flag awards to ensure communities have access to good quality green spaces

o The Community Wealth Fund, working with DCMS to ensure that communities can access long-term funding for their priorities

o Reviewing neighbourhood governance, to make it easier to set up Parish Councils so that local communities can have more say over the issues that affect them

o As well as the ability to generate new areas of work in response to the needs of communities and to reflect Ministerial priorities

• Developing advice and helping Ministers navigate an often-uncertain policy environment - demonstrating integrity and propriety in all they do. The Deputy Director will commission and oversee written policy documents from the teams – from policy briefings to more strategic narratives and plans – and will take the lead on briefing ministers and very senior leaders from the worlds of local government, faith, politics, business and beyond.
• A significant focus on building relationships with external partners. There are a variety of civil and voluntary sector organisations that do excellent work with communities, and the UK has a healthy and varied faith sector. It is vital that the government has a good level of understanding of the key issues facing all communities and can put forward innovative policies to tackle both the entrenched and the topical.
• Collaborating across the directorate and the department to make sure our work is strategically aligned - for example with the Levelling Up agenda - is analytically sound and well evaluated and provides good value for money.
• Maintaining the current healthy culture and providing support for both people and wellbeing issues within the team – including via the development of a people plan for the whole division and making an active contribution to the corporate leadership of the directorate, group and department.

Person specification

This is a welcoming, committed and high-energy directorate. If you want an exciting and motivating role, with exposure to Ministers and senior officials across government, and with autonomy and the opportunity to develop and deliver interventions that will make a real difference to thousands of lives, then this is the role for you.

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.

The successful candidate will be an enthusiastic advocate for listening to those in a wide variety of communities and places about their needs, while also applying the full rigour of the policy development process to potential government interventions. They will have experience of working with senior external partners, and a good understanding of the sensitivities of working with some communities, particularly of faith, in times of crisis.

You will think strategically and be able to make a varied set of policy objectives cohere around a central mission for the team. You will be able to articulate persuasively the team’s objectives and purpose, including to Ministers.

You may have worked in senior government policy roles, be a leader in the communities sector or have a strategy background with a keen interest in the issues we work on.

As one of the Department’s senior leaders, you will also be a visible role model for the Civil Service leadership behaviours. These can be found in the Civil Service Leadership Statement which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-leadership-statement/civil-service-leadership-statement      

Essential criteria

• Adept at building and maintaining very strong working relationships with other senior officials across Whitehall.
• The ability to understand and influence the interactions of multiple policy teams across several other government departments, to deliver your own agenda.
• Good judgement, first class briefing skills (both verbal and written) and the personal confidence to operate in a complex, specialised role with high-profile partners with a clear sense of their own aims and objectives.
• A record of working effectively with senior stakeholders – especially Ministers and/or comparable senior groups externally - and the judgement to handle highly sensitive and political issues confidently and with superb acumen.
• Strategic policy thinking capability – able to understand and shape the ways that multiple policy interventions interact, the foresight to map out what the landscape ahead will look like and the ability to lead the team to deliver success.
• A track record of driving successful delivery at pace and managing risks effectively – especially when the policy and/or political environment changes – across a large policy programme.

Desirable criteria:

• Experience of working on social policy that affects communities in the UK and/or a strong interest in and understanding of faith communities and the issues that impact them.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £75,000, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £19,710 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

How to apply
Please click the Be Applied link to provide the required information and complete your application through the Be Applied website by 23:55 on Sunday 28th January

You will be asked to enter some personal details, upload your CV and to provide your responses to the role’s advertised essential criteria.​

When prompted to upload your CV, please upload a single document consisting of: ​

• a CV (including the names of 2 referees and your current remuneration) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities, achievements and your relevant qualifications. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years. ​
• a statement of suitability explaining how your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria provided in the person specification. (max. 2 pages)​

Please remember to save these two items in one document.​

Please note that only completed applications through the Be Applied route will be considered and that any further progress updates will be sent through Be Applied.

The hiring manager, Chris Jones, would be happy to have informal discussions with candidates who would like further information about the role before submitting an application. If interested, please contact scs.recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk 

The selection panel will be made up of:

• Chris Jones, Director, Communities and Integration
• Two additional panel members, TBC

Additionally, the panel will be joined by one of our staff representatives from a pool of volunteers as part of our commitments to diversity and inclusion.

Selection process and assessments

Candidates that are shortlisted may be invited to attend a staff engagement panel. 

At DLUHC we hold staff engagement panels as an integral part of the recruitment process for Senior Civil Servants (SCS) – they are designed to help us build up a rounded picture of each candidate and give us an insight into how you might engage and interact with your team should you be successful. The purpose of the session is to help us assess your engagement and communication skills and is not about testing your subject knowledge or expertise for this particular role. Feedback from the session is passed onto the selection panel for consideration alongside the final interview.

Candidates may also be invited to a meeting with a Minister or the Secretary of State, and/or other senior stakeholders. This is not a formal part of the selection process but an informal chance for candidates to find out more about the role and the organisation.

Shortlisted candidates will also be invited to give a short presentation or complete an exercise at the beginning of their final interview. Further details will be provided to shortlisted candidates when invited to interview. 

All of the evidence presented as part of the process will be considered in the final assessment.

Security Clearance

All DLUHC colleagues must meet the Baseline Personnel Security Standard. This is a series of basic security checks to confirm identity and employment history.

In addition to the BPSS, the level of security clearance required for this role is Security Check (SC) and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete. For more details of vetting levels and requirements please refer to the Cabinet Office HMG Personnel Security Controls.

Salary

For external appointments, remuneration for this role will be circa £75,000 pa plus a bonus opportunity depending on performance (within the normal Civil Service pay arrangements) and attractive pension.​

For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If appointed on promotion you would get the higher of 10% uplift or the new minimum for Deputy Director.​​

Future pay awards will normally be made in line with current SCS performance-related pay arrangements.

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.