About the job

Job summary

DWP hosts the Synergy Programme on behalf of MoJ, Defra, Home Office, and DWP.  The programme is part of the People, Capability and Place Group within DWP.

Do you want to be part of an energetic, innovative team and bring your skills to one of the biggest changes to the administration of the Civil Service in decades?

We’re looking for people who are flexible, intuitive and are comfortable taking high levels of volume, speed and complexity in their stride.

A number of exciting new roles have come up in the Synergy Programme, a cross-departmental group formed in response to Government Business Service’s request for individual departments to group together in ‘clusters’ to drive efficiencies, increase buying power and improve the quality of shared service to our end users – our people.

Job description

The Synergy Programme is the largest of five departmental clusters, comprising the Ministry of Justice, Department for Work and Pensions, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office. The Department of Work and Pensions hosts the Synergy Programme. Your work will impact the procurement arrangements for the next 15 years, impacting over 50% of all Civil Servants – that’s 230,000 people across the four departments and arm’s length bodies.

Success of the Programme is crucial as Civil Servants rely on shared services to provide business critical tools in human resources, finance, payroll, and procurement. It affects everything we do, from joining a department as a new starter, the way we claim for expenses, how we buy goods and services such as our laptops and canteen provisions, to the way we receive our pensions when we retire.

If you’re someone who can use your experience to support us to streamline procurement to drive out error, waste, and duplication we want to hear from you. But most importantly, we’re looking for applications from people who can also demonstrate a passion for our core ambition - delivering a once in a generation, transformed service that Civil Servants will use as a result of the Synergy Programme.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Performance, Data, and Insights Lead to join the Design and Implementation workstream.

This is a new post, and we’re looking for someone who can bring Performance, Data, and Insights expertise to deliver end-to-end services for the Synergy Programme. You will deliver these from design phase to the live service.  The role is a key role and will join an established senior management team.  Adaptability and agility are essential skills, as the Synergy Programme operates in a fast-paced and complex environment.

Successful candidates can be expected to be involved in the following:

• You will have leadership responsibility for designing and implementing the data-led Performance Strategy, utilising strong collaboration skills to work with stakeholders to drive service-focussed outcomes for the transformed shared services solution.
• You will work closely with various stakeholders and multi-disciplinary teams in the Synergy Programme, other Government departments, and the System Integrator to develop a Performance Strategy within which the future services will operate.
• Develop the requirements of the performance measurement frameworks, including KPIs, goals, user needs, benefits, for the future service.
• Work with project teams to identify, assess, validate, and implement appropriate analytics tools against identified performance measurement frameworks.
• Utilise your deep knowledge of data trends and analytics to identify opportunities for convergence of performance, data and insights MI across the 4 Government departments within the Synergy Programme cluster.
• Analysing data, with expertise in data visualisation techniques and tooling, to enable evidence-based and actionable data story-telling to share with stakeholders inform decision-making.
• Inform the iterative design of the service to ensure effectiveness, efficiency, and accuracy.
• Ensure data and analysis frameworks are of high quality and are accurate, and work with a variety of qualitative and quantitative data sources.
• Provide challenge and data expertise and collaborate with other digital and analytical professions, especially user researchers, to provide collective insights.
• Act as the Synergy Programme’s Ambassador for performance analytics, engaging colleagues across the Programme to embed a performance-focused culture.
• Work collaboratively with our System Integrator partner whilst advocating for the needs of the business and Programme.

Person specification

When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below:

• Have experience in designing and implementing a performance framework and strategy, with deep experience in data analysis and data governance. (Lead Criteria)
• Be highly analytical, with excellent data, problem-solving and stakeholder management skills and experience.
• Be skilled in translating complex data architecture matters into plain English, to enable rich discussions with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Be skilled in building impactful narratives of key trends, highlighting risks and opportunities, and driving continuous improvement in data capture and reporting methods to oversee performance.
• Have experience and working knowledge of BI tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or SQL.

Desirable Criteria: 

• Have broad experience and working knowledge of Government Data Standards (GDS).

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact Felicity.Smith@dwp.gov.uk 

Benefits

• An employer pension contribution of up to 27% For further information please click here.
• Annual leave rising up to 30 days, (based on your working pattern).
• Family friendly flexible working arrangements, such as hybrid working, job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Learning and development tailored to your role this could include industry recognised qualifications, coaching and mentoring.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join staff networks including: Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

Location

Applicants should apply for suitable posts where they can travel to and from their home office location daily within a reasonable time.   

Please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas. Relocation costs will not be reimbursed 

Hybrid Working

This job role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home.  This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work. The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business need but personal circumstances and other relevant circumstances will also be taken into account. If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working, including whether a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for you, will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post.

Salary Information

Pay for this role is from £69,869 to £89,995.

The maximum salary for the grade is £77,740, however a Digital Allowance of up to £12,255 per annum is available for exceptional candidates, based on our assessment of your skills and experience.

Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer should maintain their current salary.

Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion may move to the bottom of the next grade pay scale or 10% increase in salary whichever would be the greater.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

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

Stage 1: Application

Your application will consist of three parts:

1. A Personal Details application form.

2. Your employment history detailing your responsibilities, skills, accomplishments, plus your qualifications and relevant training. Please copy this information into the box field provided.

3. Personal statement up to 1000 words. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria listed in the Person Specification.

The sift panel will use the information in your employment history and personal statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge against the essential criteria above.

You will receive one combined score for both your Employment History and Personal Statement, which will be provided in your Personal Statement score.

For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.

Important Information

• You will be asked to complete your employment history any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
• Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered.
• If your employment history/personal statement contains any personal details your application will be withdrawn.

Stage 2: Interview

If you’re successful at sift stage you will be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed in the essential criteria.

You will also be assessed on strengths

You will be asked to do a 5 minute presentation on a specific topic. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview. 

Interview dates to be confirmed. 

Further information:

Find out more about Working for DWP

 A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. Reserve list candidates will be posted in merit order by location.

Reserve list candidates will be posted in merit order by location. 

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.

Reasonable Adjustment

At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” 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.

For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How we recruit page. 

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.