About the job

Job summary

This is an opportunity to lead a high-performing multi-disciplinary team (circa 30 staff), working at the centre of a major Department. The majority of staff are based in London (2 Marsham Street) and as there is regular engagement with Ministers and Senior Officials the post holder must be able to travel to London regularly.

The Home Office Delivery Unit has two principal functions – leading the Department’s work on corporate planning, reporting, and performance, and providing a consultancy-style problem solving capability to support the department and its delivery partners deliver its most challenging outcomes. The former includes developing the Home Office Operating system, the mechanism by which the Department sets its objectives and holds business units to account for all aspects of delivery and performance. These functions are supported by a multi-disciplinary team of analysts who help us ensure recommendations and reports are evidence-based and grounded in what can be delivered in practice.

By the very nature of what we do, there will be reactive priorities we are commissioned to respond to that emerge in-year as we help Ministers and senior officials to pivot toward new pressures. The drumbeat of the Unit’s work is therefore variable and as Head of Unit, the post holder will shape the Unit’s business plan, working with the Department’s top team, including all members of the Executive Committee.  We also have a training offer, working to upskill the wider department on key delivery skills, such as trajectory setting.

The post holder will have a proven track record of operating successfully in a complex organisation, proven analytical skills and experience, and the ability to provide expert strategic advice to Ministers and senior officials or their equivalents to drive and assure delivery. They will need the confidence to define and advise on issues where they are not the expert, helping to cut through ambiguity and bring the interpersonal skills to broker solutions to tricky issues, often in fast-paced environments. They will have well-developed interpersonal skills, combined with the ability to quickly identify key issues and provide challenge, strong political antennae, and resilience.

Job description

Key responsibilities include:

• Effective and impactive leadership of a high performing team to ensure resilience, well-being and delivery of outcomes. This includes being an experienced, visible and inclusive leader in the Strategy Directorate and wider Department.
• Leading a programme of delivery support to the three Home Office Missions to drive delivery of the Department’s Outcome Delivery Plan and the Home Secretary’s priorities.
• Building and strengthening a ‘one team’ culture when it comes to working with delivery partners including other government departments (No.10, CO, HMT, DLUCH etc.) and external stakeholders.
• Leading the Delivery Unit’s work to develop a department-wide Planning Cycle as part of a more robust Home Office Operating System, including defining the planning cycle, its key components and dependencies; ensuring the exercise is vested in the wider work to develop the HO organisational strategy, Strategic Finance, People reform.
• Providing support to Director Strategy and Perm Secs so they can effectively challenge business performance.
• Overseeing the development of the Home Office’s Outcome Delivery Plan 2023/24-25, working collaboratively across department and with Whitehall colleagues – HMT, CO and No.10. including the engagement with Non-Executive Directors and Special Advisers to ensure the Plan meets their requirements/expectations.
• Helping to ensure the department manages performance, risk and delivery effectively through insightful, timely and evidence-based performance reporting and taking opportunities to streamline and automate its production wherever possible.
• Developing and maintaining effective working relationships with No.10, Cabinet Office, HMT, the Home Secretary, Ministers, SpAds and NEDs to effective delivery of Departmental priorities.

Person specification

Essential Criteria - The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability and behavioural approach to a high standard against the following key criteria:

• Excellent leadership skills - the ability to lead, manage and develop a high-performing multi-disciplinary team and demonstrate resilience in fast-paced and high-pressure environments. This includes being able to evidence effective leadership with peers and seniors.
• Data and analytical skills – a professional background in analysis or direct leadership experience in the deliver function of a complex organisation. Demonstrable experience in defining strategic and delivery problems, bringing quality evidence forward, and simplifying and clarifying options to make credible and incisive recommendations. Strong attention to detail with an ability to communicate complex issues and data clearly, verbally and in writing, to a wide variety of audiences.
• Collaboration and political acumen - material experience of successfully influencing top Ministerial or equivalent stakeholders, marrying political acumen and professional judgement with an ability to get things done. Strong stakeholder management skills to bring together different perspectives to achieve single outcomes, including providing challenge where required, and the ability to identify issues to be brought to the attention of Ministers and Permanent Secretaries in order to improve Departmental performance. 
• Change management - a strong track record in proactively improving systems and processes, able to work across the department to effect change.

Desirable Criteria

• Relevant experience in the Home Office sector. 

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £75,000, Home Office 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

Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online, no later than 23:55hrs on Tuesday 14th May 2024.

Provide some basic personal information;

• A CV - setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years;
• A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.
• Diversity Monitoring - as part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say'. See the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 (HTML) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information.

It is essential that in your written application you give evidence, using examples, of proven experience. These responses will be developed and discussed with candidates invited for interview. Failure to submit both a CV and Supporting Statement will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

For further information on SCS careers and the application process, please see below:

Home Office SCS Further Information

Home Office Senior Leaders - Home Office Careers

Home Office SCS Application Process

Applying for Senior Civil Service vacancies - Home Office Careers

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 developed vetting (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.