About the job

Job summary

Our work affects the entire population: the financial interests of hundreds of thousands; the health of major parts of the economy; and the legacy we leave subsequent generations. The remediation programme was established following the Grenfell Tower fire to make sure that buildings are safe, and that residents feel safe in them, now and in the future. 

Remediation work began six years ago, first prioritising fixing buildings with Grenfell-type ACM cladding before expanding to high-rise and medium-rise buildings with unsafe cladding as the scale of the challenge has grown.

It is an exciting time to join us in meeting the challenge. There is a high level of ministerial engagement, public and media interest. As the Head of Remediation Communications and Safer Greener Buildings Briefings you will lead thematic policy announcements; identify opportunities to ensure that we can tell the best story possible; lead internal remediation comms to ensure the portfolio is well informed; and lead the group-wide briefings team to support ministerial and senior stakeholder and parliamentary activity. The briefings team sits in the very centre of the Group, providing a critical function in translating its work into clear, robust and high-quality briefing products and PQ responses for our ministers, senior officials and others. This supports effective engagement with stakeholders and parliament. We are a small and friendly team and are looking for an enthusiastic team player who will guide the team as they work collaboratively and supportively with wider departmental colleagues.

Job description

You will be responsible for developing and implementing strategic communications strategies and working with the departmental comms team and other relevant teams to implement plans. This will include digital communications, insight, press office, policy and operational teams, and private offices. You will need to build excellent relationships with them to deliver effective comms and briefing products that have the desired impact. You will enjoy being on top of, and alive to, a wide range of issues, and be able to translate this into succinct high quality written products. This is a visible role that will best suit applicants who can thrive under pressure, manage competing priorities, have excellent written skills, handle complex policy, and engage confidently with Ministers and senior stakeholders across Whitehall. It is a great opportunity to play a leading role in delivering on a critical government priority, as well as creating a supportive, inclusive and effective team culture. We are looking for someone who is brave and not afraid to develop new and creative approaches to storytelling, ensuring that we’re continually testing and learning and increasing the impact of our messages to achieve our objectives.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Developing and maintaining a single, consistent portfolio narrative. This will form the basis of multiple products and be utilised by teams. You will ensure message discipline across the group and explain our intention to key audiences.

• Overseeing the Safer Greener Buildings briefings team in supporting Ministers and senior officials in their parliamentary appearances and stakeholder meetings. You will be responsible for ensuring concise and informative cross-cutting briefing products are drafted and delivered for ministers and senior stakeholders and for co-ordinating responses to Parliamentary Questions.

• Work closely with the central comms team to set strategic direction for remediation comms and support the ongoing development of an overarching remediation comms strategy to achieve objectives and reflect diverse stakeholder needs.

• Identify communications opportunities, providing strategic communications advice and oversight to identify and drive the delivery of policy announcements. You will be adept at recognising opportunities and then, working with DLUHC comms, putting in place plans to turn these into strong announcements to demonstrate delivery.

• Lead the coordination of cross-cutting remediation announcements.

• Promote best practice across the remediation portfolio. Playing a leading role in upskilling the wider remediation portfolio in communications and briefings.

• As a key spokesperson for our senior leadership team you will be responsible for engaging with our senior stakeholders and effectively bring to life the vision of the directorate.

• Acting as a single point of contact for the central comms team to improve coordination of responses to media queries and development of comms products.

• Leading the team through periods of ambiguity and crisis, including reshuffle preparations and during key, high-pressure moments.

• Leadership and line management of a team to deliver objectives, ensuring they feel supported to deliver under pressure whilst maintaining an inclusive environment. Seek continuous improvement.

• Establish and maintain good working relationships with Private Offices, comms teams, policy teams and others.

Person specification

• You will be a proactive individual with exceptional leadership skills, committed to developing and empowering your colleagues. You will demonstrate leadership by enthusiastically contributing to the positive culture of the Group.

• You will be highly organised, enabling you to effectively manage multiple, sometimes conflicting priorities whilst delivering high-quality results.

• You will be an articulate communicator, both in writing and verbally, who is able to confidently brief Ministers and senior officials, including developing varied briefing and comms products.

• You will be a critical and creative thinker who is able to maintain a strategic perspective across a range of activities and enjoy collaborating with others.

• You will have great interpersonal skills which enable you to develop positive, trusting relationships with a range of stakeholders of all levels to get things done.

• Ability to drive delivery on Ministerial priorities across multiple teams on complex and politically sensitive issues;

Desirable Criteria

• Experience working on external communications or parliamentary briefings, and close working with communications teams, Ministers and senior officials;

• Experience leading and motivating teams to deliver under pressure through ambiguity.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £61,599, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £16,631 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

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

CV and Cover Letter Declaration

We recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not background, gender or ethnicity - this is called name blind recruitment.

Please remove references to your:

• name/title
• educational institutions
• age
• gender
• email address
• postal address
• phone number
• nationality/immigration status

You will need to merge your CV and covering letter into one document. When submitting your application Applied will ask you to upload a CV, when doing this you should upload your merged document of your CV and covering letter.

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

At sift, through your CV and covering letter we will be assessing:

Experience

Technical Ability

Your CV should detail your career history and any relevant qualifications. Your covering letter (750 words max) should explain how your skills and experience make you suitable for this role set out in the job description.

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of experience and technical based questions as listed in the advert. 

There will be a written exercise at interview.  

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

Experience: Yes - Experience questions will be based around the essential skills and criteria as listed in the job description

Technical: Yes – Technical questions will be based around the essential skills and criteria as listed in the job description.

We do not consider direct CV applications – 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 6 salary

• The salary for this role is £67,889 (London) or £61,599 (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.

Location

• London
• Bristol
• Nottingham
• Wolverhampton
• Darlington*

*Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service. 

For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack.

At present, a minimum of 60% of your working time will be spent in your contractual office location. Requirements to attend other office locations or off-site meetings will be counted towards this. You will be asked to express a location preference during the application process. 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 01/04/2024 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 on 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.

CTC (Counter-terrorism Clearance):

Important note

Successful candidates for roles based in our 2 Marsham Street building must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete.

Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the CTC security checks – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. Please refer to the DLUHC Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Counter Terrorism Clearance (CTC).

Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by DLUHC. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database.

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

Candidate Pack Information

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information.

 

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. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist 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.