About the job

Job summary

Working to the Director of Indirect Tax within Customer Strategy & Tax Design Group, the job holder will lead a team of around 40, undertaking priority policy work, ensuring VAT Reliefs, Financial Services and Insurance Premium Tax are optimised to deliver essential revenues and Ministerial and Departmental objectives.

The post-holder will ensure that the policies for which they are responsible are designed to meet Ministerial, Government and Departmental aims. They will make evidence-based  decisions on complex policy, technical and legal issues with a range of competing stakeholders and priorities to consider. This will include protecting the VAT regime against boundary pushing, working with a range of experts in their team and across the Department.

The jobholder will be a member of the Indirect Tax SLT and provide inspirational, confident, empowering, and visible SCS leadership for their teams, across the Directorate and wider organisation.

Job description

Key Responsibilities 

• Working with HM Treasury on VAT Reliefs, Financial Services and Insurance Premium Tax to achieve the government’s fiscal and policy objectives and identifying and delivering reforms to support delivery of HMRC’s strategic objectives.
• Where appropriate act as Senior Responsible Officer for the operational delivery of policy measures, ensuring that customer, compliance, and efficiency implications are fully considered.
• Build collaborative and productive working relationships with a broad range of HMRC colleagues, HM Treasury officials and Ministers.
• Engaging across government and externally, representing HMRC professionally, taking opportunities to influence.
• Play a key role in embedding new ways of working for VAT such as VAT Regime Ownership for example.
• Lead a team of 40 including tax and policy experts to defend policies and protect revenue from boundary pushing, mis interpretation and mis application.
• Continue their teams’ development and support them to deliver their objectives.

Person specification

We are seeking an experienced leader with deep policy knowledge and a demonstrable track record of delivering results. We want to hear from candidates with a real passion for leadership, developing technical and policy experts and empowering them to successfully design policy, with the gravitas to inspire and influence senior stakeholders.

The successful applicant will need to demonstrate relevant experience and effective delivery of the following essential criteria.

Essential Criteria:

• Proven leadership skills with a focus on engagement, development, and collective ownership of strategic objectives.
• Demonstrable experience of policy leadership, including leading teams of policy experts in collaboratively designing effective policies in a complex, fast-paced environment.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills including at ministerial level or equivalent, and with internal and external or cross -Government stakeholders.
• Excellent communication skills at all levels, and in writing, ensuring that complex issues are set out in a simple and accessible way that is influential and authoritative.

Desirable criteria:

• Knowledge and experience of working on VAT.
• Experience of working with Ministers and the fiscal event process.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £75,000, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £20,250 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

To apply for this post, you will need to complete an online application by submitting the following:

• A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
• A Statement of Suitability explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the criteria in the person specification.

Your CV and Statement of Suitability should reflect your most relevant and recent skills and experience in relation to the role. Therefore, we recommend that each document is no more than two A4 pages long.

By not submitting a CV and a Statement of Suitability will mean we only have limited information to assess your application against the person specification. Please ensure both documents contain your full name.

All Criminal Record Checks applications are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.

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 counter-terrorist 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.