About the job

Job summary

The Cities and Local Growth Unit (CLGU) is a joint unit between DLUHC and DBT. We support economic development and growth in places across the UK – but especially in places that have been left behind. We lead on initiatives including: pan regional partnerships, support for towns and high streets, levelling up funding and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund; devolution of powers and funding; responses to economic shocks; and freeports. 

CLGU is committed to the welfare of all our people. We take mental health and work-life balance seriously.

You will join the East Midlands and Midlands Engine Team, as one of two G7s on our Midlands Engine Team.

The Midlands Engine aims to increase productivity, economic growth and quality of life across both the East and West Midlands. The Midlands Engine area has over 10 million people and covers the nine Midlands Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) plus the West Midlands Combined Authority and the announced East Midlands Mayoral Combined County Authority. 

The Levelling Up White Paper set out the role of pan regional partnerships, such as the Midlands Engine, as collaborative bodies that can drive growth and productivity regionally. 

The role 

As a Grade 7 working on the Midlands Engine, you will represent government on economic growth and levelling up policy with the Midlands Engine, local authorities, LEPs and universities; you will become authoritative on the political and economic context of the region and play a key leadership role in sponsoring the Midlands Engine Partnership, guiding their work and using it to shape and influence policy. 

You will also play a key role with the East Midlands Area Team providing the focus of our work on the key strategic opportunities emerging around J24 of the M1, collaborating with local partners and officials in government, shaping thinking and briefing Ministers.

You will line manage team members, and will act independently day to day, using economic intelligence, relationships, and your significant judgement and creativity to drive team direction, identifying priorities for you and your team, resolving challenges, and convening key local and government partners. 

We particularly welcome candidates from an ethnic minority background and other underrepresented groups to apply, as we work to continually improve our ability to represent the places and communities we support through our work. 

Job description

You will:

•    Forge strong, positive and long term working relationships with other government departments (for example DfT, DCMS and DESNZ) and Midlands Engine partners to develop policy work or projects, to shape national and regional priorities and opportunities.
•    Lead on aspects relating to the Midlands Engine’s work such as green growth, collaborating with other PRP teams and other departments
•    You will lead the Team’s work on the strategic opportunities around J24, developing a programme plan, developing relationships with local partners and other departments, developing approaches to shaping and aligning key programmes, shaping thinking and working with other departments, senior officials and Ministers. 
•    Support Ministers and Senior Officials through producing high-quality written briefing, PQ responses and submissions, often to short timescales. You will ensure briefings are timely, accurate and relevant to support meetings, visits and Parliamentary appearances.
•    Build relationships across the Unit, with policy teams across departments and support collaboration between the different pan regional teams, forging strong working relationships
•    Support work across the Team and Unit flexibly, including making a corporate contribution to help make the Unit a great place to work.

Person specification

We would love to hear from you if:

•    You are a leader with great collaboration skills
•    You are good at building and maintaining relationships
•    You have good written and oral communication skills
•    You have good critical thinking and reasoning skills.
•    You enjoy tackling shaping thinking to make a difference in places

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £51,934, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £14,022 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

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

We are for everyone 

 

At DLUHC we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation. 

  

We would strongly recommend that applicants get in touch with the vacancy manager to find out more information about this role.  

 

We are for everyone 

 

DLUHC want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.  

 

Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).  

 

At application stage you will be asked to upload a CV document. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage. 

 

Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.  

 

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors. 

 

When writing your application, remember: 

• The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.  
• Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.  
• If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!) 

 

At sift, we will be assessing 

 

Behaviour (Lead Behaviour): Leadership

Behaviour: Seeing the Big Picture

Behaviour: Communicating and Influencing

Behaviour: Working Together

 

There is a 250 word limit per question. 

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements:    

Behaviour: Leadership, Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together

Ability

Strengths

The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.  

Candidates will be expected to deliver a presentation at interview stage, the details of which will be provided upon invitation.

In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profile Elements: 

 

Behaviours: Leadership, Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together

Ability: Presentation at Interview Stage

Strengths: Yes

 

We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs 

Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign. 

Grade 7 salary 

• The salary for this role is £51,934 (National). 
• For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If you apply for a role that requires a transfer of location, for example if you are transferring from London to a National location, your salary will be adjusted in accordance with our policy on transfer between HQ pay ranges. 

 
Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation’s terms and conditions.   

 

BENEFITS: 

Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018: 
Any move to DLUHC 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 

For further information about the benefits available to DLUHC employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack. 

  

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION: 

• Birmingham
• Nottingham 

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role. 

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES: 

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 5th February 2024 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall. 

Reserve List 
 
In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details in a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list. 

Candidate Pack Information 

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. 

Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the DLUHC candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules 

 

Internal Fraud Database 

The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.  

For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

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

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.