About the job

Job summary

We are recruiting two Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRRR) Quality, Standards and Improvement Manager’s to join our Quality Standards and Improvement (QSI) team within UKHSA.

The QSI Team are responsible for ensuring that the necessary standards are achieved and maintained across the UKHSA’s preparedness activities (including learning, training, and exercises) and the process for the continuous improvement of the UKHSA’s preparedness, resilience and response arrangements. The team will work alongside all Groups in UKHSA to appropriately agree and assign actions to address learning identified from incident response, simulation exercises, research and evaluation, ensuring that lessons are learned and embedded.

As EPRR Quality, Standards and Improvement Manager you will be managing quality, standards and improvement activity to consistently improve UKHSA’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from health security threats. You will also help to develop, maintain and grow effective working relationships with a variety of stakeholders, including internal and external stakeholders.

Location:

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) operates a hybrid working model where business needs allow.  This provides us with greater flexibility about how and where we work, to get the best from our workforce. As a hybrid worker, you will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of your contractual working hours (approximately 3 days a week pro rata, (averaged over a month) working at one of UKHSA's locations (Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and London).  As this is a specialist role, we also offer Porton Down (Salisbury). For certain roles, some additional flexibility may be possible, which will be agreed upon with the hiring manager based on individual requirements and business needs.

*Please be aware that this role can only be worked from within the UK and not overseas. Relocation expenses are not available. *

Job description

The job holder will be required to carry out the following responsibilities, activities and duties:

• Support the QSI Senior Leadership Team to establish, develop, and maintain systems and processes for effective working within EPRR Quality, Standards, and Improvement.
• Help develop, maintain, and grow effective working relationships with a variety of stakeholders, to deliver the EPRR continuous improvement process.
• The post holder will work with minimal supervision and be expected to work flexibly as part of a team providing a range of duties. The post holder may work with colleagues who are based across the country at different sites and/or who work remotely.
• Manage the development of partnerships with other areas, such as the preparedness training and exercises teams, National Response Centre and Regions to deliver joint programmes of work across UKHSA. For example, this could involve providing facilitation between the areas where appropriate to support the delivery of continuous improvement processes and plans.
• To provide administrative management support for the EPRR Continuous Improvement Group, including organising meetings, secretariat, and general coordination activity.

Please review the job description for a full list of responsibilities.

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The Job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

It is important through your application and Statement of Suitability of 1250 words that you give evidence and examples of proven experience of each of the essential criteria (for full details of all essential criteria please refer to the attached job description):

Essential

• Vocational experience of working within Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response (EPRR) or with quality, standards, and improvement.
• Experience of successfully delivering change and improvement to a system or process.
• Experience of managing and delivering a high-quality service to many stakeholders.
• Experience of establishing dashboards and/or creating performance reports.
• Experience of managing activities to coordinate multiple stakeholders to deliver joint activity.
• Good written and verbal communication skills with the ability to produce high quality written documents and experience of presenting.
• Delivering at pace, against an environment of changing priorities, and a flexible approach to working arrangements including being able to work away from office/home base.
• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to develop effective relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, collaborating across boundaries with the ability to influence and challenge effectively.

Desirable

• Recent experience of emergency preparedness, resilience, and response (EPRR) in general, or a good working knowledge of multi-agency preparedness and response activities.
• Experience of managing others including task management, performance management, carrying out appraisals and development.

Please review the Job Description for the full criteria.

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

STAGE 1 - APPLICATION & SIFT: 

You will be required to complete an application form and statement of suitability.

Your Statement of Suitability should outline your skills, experience, and achievements, providing evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential criteria (outlined in the person specification section). Your statement of suitability must be no more than 1250 words. Please do not exceed 1250 words.  We will not consider any words over and above this number.

You will also be asked to provide information within the ‘Employer/ Activity history’ section of the application form. This is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV, setting out your career history.

If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to an interview.

Feedback will not be provided at this stage.

STAGE 2 – INTERVIEW 

You will be invited to a (single) remote interview.

As part of the process, you will be invited to interview which will involve an in-depth discussion of your previous experience. You will also be asked to prepare and deliver a 10-minute presentation to the panel.  This will be followed by a question-and-answer segment.  The presentation will be designed to assess your experience in line with the requirements of the role.  Full details will be provided prior to the interview.

The Success Profiles framework will be used to assess and recruit the most suitable candidate.  The following behaviours will be used at the interview:

• Seeing the bigger picture
• Changing and improving
• Working together
• Delivering at pace

Feedback will only be provided if you are invited and attend an interview.

Expected Timeline:

Advert close: 23:55hrs on 23rd July 2024 – unfortunately, late applications will not be considered. Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Shortlist: 24-26th July 2024

Interviews: w/c 5th August 2024

Please note these dates could be subject to change.  

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

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.