About the job

Job summary

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is the department for economic growth. The Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) directorate develops and operates tools and services to support businesses to invest, grow and export, creating jobs and opportunities across the country

About the Role

We are looking for two Deputy Service Owners to join our team and deliver outcomes for the economy as part of a portfolio multidisciplinary team. As part of DDaT you can expect to work across a range of products and services. We:

• Manage the UK trade tariff, working with HMRC to enable importing and exporting to and from the UK 
• Support business growth domestically and internationally through a range of advisory, educational, and promotional content on https://www.great.gov.uk/
• Help businesses meet a range of regulations to operate safely and successfully, including licensing of controlled goods  
• Enable teams in the department to have the greatest impact on the economy through the provision of technology and data platforms such as Customer Relationship Management systems.

In this recruitment round, we are especially looking for a deputy service owner to work on business-facing services that promote growth, and another to enable the successful migration of data and technology onto a single IT system for the department. In your tenure as a service owner in DDaT, you can expect to have the opportunity to change the portfolio you are working in to continue your own learning and development.  

As Deputy Service Owner, you will work to ensure our platforms and services are successfully used across the department and externally, and delivering their intended benefits. You’ll look after one or more data, tech or digital platform or service and act as a critical point of connection between the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) function, the wider Department, and stakeholders across HMG. You’ll report into a Service Owner with responsibility for a broader portfolio that your work forms part of. You’ll work as part of the teams delivering the platforms or services you’re working on and the rest of the service ownership team to shape, communicate and deliver against a vision. A big part of the role will involve helping stakeholders understand how the platforms and services you’re working on can support them to deliver the best outcomes for the UK economy, and making sure that the platforms and services continue to deliver against the department’s top priorities.    

Job description

As a Deputy Service Owner, you will be responsible for: 

Acting as the first strategic point of contact to represent platforms and services with business areas. This includes:

• Acting as a trusted partner to advise on how DDaT can support the department’s work.
• Leading pre-discovery, understanding if new ideas should be progressed.
• Supporting better prioritisation of improvements (through sound recommendations built on insights, data, and evidence).
• Acting as a steward, driving solutions forward, informed by multidisciplinary colleagues. 
• Understanding the user needs for the platforms/services you look after to identify opportunities to optimise our offer, working hand in hand with other professions including policy, operations and other DDaT roles such as technical and data architecture, business analysis, user research and service design.
• Providing strategic direction for DDaT’s services to the delivery team and to the wider department, working particularly closely with the product profession.
• Ensuring take up of the services to realise their benefits, working with DDaT’s engagement and strategic adoption team & monitoring and evaluation teams as well as the wider department’s communications and marketing team.
• Managing risks, dependencies, and budget within your portfolio, working with the delivery profession.

Person specification

Skills and Experience

It is essential that you have experience of:

• Being an expert collaborator, able to bring others along with you.
• Developing a long-term vision and objectives in a digital context.
• Drawing on user-centred design and data to inform high quality products and services.
• An understanding of technology and data service provision, including security and life-cycle considerations.
• Managing and prioritising work and budgets for senior stakeholders with conflicting needs and demands. 
• High quality written skills - experience producing a wide range of information including formal written documents for senior stakeholders, meeting papers and/or business cases.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £52,000, Department for Business and Trade contributes £14,040 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

As part of the application process you will be asked to upload a two page CV and complete a cover letter, no more than 1 page A4, outlining how you meet the essential skills and experience listed above. You can use bullet points and subheadings if you prefer.

 

Sift will be from week commencing 17th June 2024

Interviews will be from week commencing 24th June 2024

Please note these dates are indicative and may be subject to change.

If there is a high volume of applications, we will sift looking at your CV only. You may then be progressed to full sift or straight to interview.

How we interview

At the interview stage for this role, you will be asked to demonstrate relevant Technical Skills and Behaviours from the Success Profiles framework. These are role specific and in line with the DDaT Capability Framework.

Technical Skills

• Agile Working  
• Business Partnering  
• DDaT Standards outside your discipline  
• Experience of working within constraints  
• Financial management  
• User -centric evidence, qual and quant  
• Life cycle perspective  
• Portfolio ownership  
• Problem ownership  

Behaviours

• ​Working Together​  
• ​​Communicating and Influencing​  
• ​​Seeing the Big Picture​  

Applicants who are invited to the interview stage will be asked to complete a written exercise and will be informed of the topic following the sift.

 

How we offer

Offers may be made in merit order based on location preferences. If you pass the bar at interview but are not the highest scoring you will be held on a 12-month reserve list in case a role becomes available. If you are judged a near miss at interview, you may be offered a post at the grade below the one you applied for.

This role requires SC clearance. DBT’s requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years. Failure to meet this requirement will result in your application being rejected and your offer will be withdrawn.

Checks will also be made against:

• departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• security services record
• location details

More about us

This role can only be worked from within the UK, not overseas. If you are based in London, you will receive London weighting. DBT employees work in a hybrid pattern, spending 2-3 days a week (pro rata) in the office on average.  Travel to your primary office location will not be paid for by DBT, but costs for travel to an office which is not your main location will be covered.

You can find out more about our office locations, how we calculate salaries, our diversity statement and reasonable adjustments, the Recruitment Principles, the Civil Service code and our complaints procedure on our website.

Find out more about life at DBT, our benefits and meet the team by watching our video or reading our blog!

 

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.