About the job

Job summary

This role is a key member of the Enterprise Services (ES) leadership team and is focused on Business Relationship Management between ES and its various customers across the department and two essential IT Service Management (ITSM) functions - Service Architecture, Design and Introduction (SADI) and Service Management - aligned to the Home Office missions and capabilities.

This is a position of great breadth, supporting over 700 products and services used by the department’s 60,000 internal users and millions of citizens. This includes many highly critical technology solutions that the department relies on to achieve core objectives such as Reducing Crime, Preventing Terrorism, Tackling Illegal Migration, and Facilitating Legitimate Movement.

The roles owns and sets strategy for the IT Service Management function, including alignment with wider DDaT and departmental strategies and objectives. This includes ways of working and leading work underway to redefine the Home Office approach to ITSM activities, and how these best work with modern delivery methods and product lifecycle management. 

The role is responsible for a budget of £220m per year (net £140m) and a team of ~140 civil servants. The successful applicant will represent and champion Service Management across DDaT, the department and wider Government by sharing, collaborating, and promoting the value of the function. They will also build strategic and constructive relationships with third-party suppliers and senior stakeholders.

Job description

Key responsibilities include:

• Developing and delivering the enterprise-wide Service Management strategy to support DDaT and the wider Home Office's objectives
• Setting policies and standards, plans and processes to ensure services deliver agreed levels of availability and quality.
• Overseeing financial planning, budgeting, costing, accounting and charging using recognised accounting practices and standards in the management of a £220m budget (net £140m).
• Planning, organising and conducting assurance activity for all service management and risk activities within scope of the rope.
• Line management of a large and experienced leadership team.
• Oversight of contract management across the service management function and the large number of external suppliers in play.
• Actively building, maintaining, and managing senior stakeholder relationships within the department, with suppliers, and across Government.
• Develop the Business Relationship Management function on the behalf of all of ES, both in terms of improving the entry point into ES and establishing the strategic relationships that will enable ES to provide maximum value to the rest of DDaT and the wider department.
• Representing Service Management on various internal governance boards.

Person specification

Essential criteria

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability and behavioural approach to a high standard against the following key criteria: 

• Defining and implementing a vision, strategy and roadmap for a Service Management function, ensuring alignment to a wider organisational strategy and objectives.
• Working closely with senior leaders and a broad range of stakeholders within a complex environment, building credibility and utilising communication and influencing skills to establish effective relationships and set clear strategic direction.
• Demonstrating an inspiring and coherent leadership style and the ability to engage and win the cooperation of team members.
• Delivering large, high-profile projects and programmes in an agile environment, managing significant budgets to deliver business outcomes.
• Managing suppliers to commercial agreements to establish and maximise effective working relationships that stimulates innovation and successfully delivers value for money.
• Identifying and assessing new and emerging technologies, methods and techniques, evaluating potential impacts, threats and opportunities to advise on optimal approaches.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £96,000, Home Office contributes £25,920 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

Please submit your application online at the following link:

https://www.gatenbysanderson.com/job/GSe106764 no later than 11.55pm on Sunday 3 March 2024.

Provide some basic personal information;

1. A CV - setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years;
2. A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1250 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.
3. Diversity Monitoring - as part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say'. See the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 (HTML) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information.

It is essential that in your written application you give evidence, using examples, of proven experience. These responses will be developed and discussed with candidates invited for interview. Failure to submit both a CV and Supporting Statement will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

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.