About the job

Job summary

The Home Office is here to make our country safer. As well as working to reduce crime and enforce the law. We also work to protect the most vulnerable and have a proud history of providing refuge to those who have been displaced or are seeking asylum. Whether it is fighting crime, protecting our borders or combating slavery, the Home Office is at the cutting edge of public policy in this country and our work is some of the most challenging and rewarding in government.

About the Public Safety Group:

The Public Safety Group’s role is to keep the public safe by cutting crime, disrupting the highest harm criminals, protecting the vulnerable and ensuring that our police, fire and rescue services are as efficient and effective as they can be in delivering front line public services.

The people in our Group develop and implement policy, provide funding, and deliver legislation. We make the most of innovation, data, and partnerships to prevent crime, protect the vulnerable, and tackle the highest harm crimes. We work with our partners in law enforcement, establishing governance arrangements at a national, regional and local level.

Job description

Britain’s emergency services work 24/7 to serve the public in some of the most dangerous and challenging situations. To help them do their job even better the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) is creating the next generation mobile communications network, including secure and resilient voice and broadband data services, which will be used by thousands of front-line police officers, paramedics, and fire-fighters. 

This new Emergency Services Network (ESN) will transform how our blue-light services respond to incidents, offering better mobile coverage, leading to faster response times. ESN will allow emergency service professionals to work together more efficiently and effectively when incidents and accidents occur by sharing data across the new digital network. The new network is dynamic and can take advantage of new technology as it develops, making sure that those doing the vital job of protecting the public and saving lives get the best and most modern communications tools available.

ESMCP is a pan-government, cross departmental, programme based within the Home Office.  The ESMCP has representation from the emergency services at both operational and departmental levels and has close working involvement from the suppliers of the ESN technology. This is an exciting programme, delivering cutting edge technology which will directly impact people’s lives.

As one of the biggest programmes in Government, ESMCP is under scrutiny from both internal and independent assurers to ensure governance processes are followed and the best possible value is delivered for the public purse whilst ensuring that ESN meets the needs of the emergency services.
This is an important role within the ESMCP Project Management Office (PMO) team to work across and interface with the ESMCP functions, workstreams and projects. 

The post-holder will support the G7 Embedded PMO Lead to ensure compliance with the ESMCP PMO processes (Reporting and Governance, Risk and Lessons Learnt). The activities undertaken by this role will help drive consistency and enable the ESMCP Senior Responsible Owner (SRO), Programme Director (PD), the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to maintain a strategic over-view and understanding of delivery progress.

As an SEO ePMO analyst you will, at times, be required to cover for the G7 ePMO Lead and provide direct advice to the G6 Head of PMO.

The successful candidate will be expected to travel to other locations occasionally as required by the business. The cost associated with any travel will be met by the business area in line with HO policy.

This role is not suitable for part-time working due to the nature of this role and business needs.

Person specification

The day-to-day responsibilities for the role include:

•       Providing secretariat support to the Level 2 Governance Boards, including the collation and circulation of board packs, minute taking, recording actions and decisions in the actions and decisions logs, progressing actions to close-out, board scheduling and maintaining attendees.

•       Assisting with the creation and maintenance of the Level 2 and Level 3 Governance Terms of References.

•       Providing support to Workstreams Leads and Project Managers with the Exception Management process and attending the monthly Exceptions Management meeting with internal and external stakeholders when required.

•       Maintenance of the Workstream level Risk and Issue registers, ensuring both Workstream and Project level Risk and Issue registers are being maintained in accordance with the ESMCP Risk and Issue management process and guidelines.

•       Supporting the Project and Workstream Leads with escalation of Risks and Issues for acceptance and management at programme level by the Executive Leadership Team (ELT).

•       Supporting the Lessons Learnt process by working with Workstream Leads and Project Managers by attending Lessons Learned workshops.

•       Ensuring Lessons captured have been reviewed and accepted by Workstream Leads and/or Project Managers, and any relevant Risks or Issues are being raised and treated, or where positive lessons are captured, helping to ensure these are embedded on the ESMCP.

•       Actively supporting the G7 Embedded PMO Lead, Project Managers, Workstream Leads and wider Programme community on ad hoc requests as required.

•       Attending the twice-weekly PMO Stand-Up to provide updates for any allocated tasks.

•       Chairing and collating information for the monthly PMO All-Hands which is chaired on a rota basis by the PMO team members.

Essential criteria

You’ll have a demonstrable passion for delivery with the following skills or strong experience in:

•     Experience of working in a Project/Programme delivery environment 

•     Demonstrable experience of carrying out Risk and Issue management activities, providing written updates in complex, fast-paced, challenging environments 

•     Experience of governance frameworks and methodology gained in complex, fast-paced, challenging environments 

•     Ability to critically evaluate information gathered across multiple sources, reconcile variances, and recommend improvements/actions

•     Experience of managing challenging, complex, and diverse public sector stakeholders, tailoring messages appropriately and demonstrating strong engagement skills to influence others, gain agreement and cooperation 

•     Experience of producing project/board minutes containing technical detail.

Desirable criteria

For this role, the below experience would be beneficial, but is not essential:

•      Certified PRINCE2 and Agile Practitioner
•      Waterfall and Agile project and programme delivery experience
•      Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Practitioner or Management of Portfolios (MoP) Practitioner.

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

As part of the application process candidates will be required to submit a CV and Statement of Suitability (of no more than 1000 words) that is aligned to the Essential criteria as set out in the job advertisement.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

In addition candidates will be required to provide evidence of the lead behaviour 'Delivering at Pace'.  

CVs will not be scored.

The sift will be held on the Statement of Suitability and the lead behaviour 'Delivering at Pace'.  

In an event where a high volume of applications are received, an initial sift will take place using the Statement of Suitability. Candidates who pass the initial sift will be either progressed to a full sift or straight to interview.

Successful candidates shortlisted for interview will be tested on a blended approach of Strength-based questions and Behaviour-based questions.

Sift and Interview dates

The sift will take place week commencing 15th April 2024

Interviews will take place week commencing 6th May 2024

Interviews will take place remotely. Further details and instructions will be provided closer to the scheduled interview.

Further Information

For meaningful checks to be carried out, individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. You should normally have been resident in the United Kingdom for the last 3 years if the role requires CTC clearance, 5 years for SC clearance and 10 years for DV.  A lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance and applicants should contact the Vacancy Holder/Recruiting Manager listed in the advert for further advice.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the following page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demystifying-vetting

Every day, Home Office civil servants do brilliant work to develop and deliver policies and services that affect the lives of people across the country and beyond. To do this effectively and fairly, the Home Office is committed to representing modern Britain in all its diversity, and creating a welcoming, inclusive workplace where all our people are able to bring their whole selves to work and perform at their best.

We are flexible, skilled, professional and diverse. We work to recruit and retain disabled staff and area Disability Confident Leader. We are proud to be one of the most ethnically diverse departments in the civil service. We are a Social Mobility Foundation top 75 employer.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, 

subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

For further information please see the attached notes for candidates which must be read before making an application.

Existing Civil Servants should note that some of the Home Office terms and conditions of employment have changed. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the Terms and Conditions they will adopt should they be successful in application and should refer to the notes for candidates for further details.

Transfer Terms: Voluntary.

If you are invited to an interview you will be required to  bring a range of documentation for the purposes of establishing identity and to aid any pre-employment checks.

Please see the attached list of Home Office acceptable ID documents.

Any move to the Home Office from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk 

Reasonable Adjustments

If a person with disabilities is at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes. 

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact Government Recruitment Service via HOrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs
• Complete the “Assistance Required” section in the “Additional Requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a language service professional

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ‘Contact point for applicants’ section.

Feedback

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.