About the job

Job summary

The challenge

The Home Office is central to UK life. Our work extends from devising drugs policies and ensuring the immigration system is not being abused, to delivering an accountable policing service. Join us in this important role and you’ll be a key member of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services leadership team. The Insight Portfolio is a central function within this organisation, and is responsible for using analytical and digital expertise to inform and improve inspections.

The role

You’ll be taking on a complex, senior role, and your primary focus will be to lead, design and direct a programme of data collection, analysis, insight, research and evaluation. Working across multiple areas of inspection activity to provide operational insights and identify opportunities that could deliver more effective inspections, you’ll also contribute to a wide range of activities such as strategy development, building organisational capabilities and capacity, business planning, inspection development and risk management.

Committed to delivering high quality, accurate and timely data and analysis to support inspections across the country’s police forces and fire and rescue services, you’ll have leadership and line management accountability for around 40 civil servants, secondees and associates. With this in mind, we’ll expect you to ensure the team have the skills, capacity and knowledge to deliver the full range of their important remit.

Job description

About you

With a first degree in a relevant discipline, and well developed senior-level experience of using an agile digital approach to data collection, analysis, research and evaluation, you’ll possess a good understanding of analytical techniques and statistical data, and their application for inspection purposes. With excellent communication skills, good commercial awareness and familiarity with the outsourcing of digital, analytical and research projects, knowledge of the strategic and operational challenges faced by police forces and fire services would also be desirable.

Membership of, or the skills and experience that would allow you to be recognised by one of the main analytical professions would be a bonus. In addition, you’ll be at an advantage if you have experience of using police processes for receiving and recording crimes, and an understanding of the role of inspection and how it can improve policing.

In return for your skills and expertise we can offer you a great career with one of the Government’s most interesting and inclusive departments. And with ongoing training and development opportunities and a highly competitive benefits package, there’s no saying where your career will take you at the Home Office.

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:

• Substantial senior-level experience in data collection, analysis, research and evaluation adopting an agile digital approach;
• An understanding of analytical techniques and statistical data, their application and value for inspection purposes and their limitations;
• Excellent communication skills, including written and oral communication; and
• A degree at bachelors’ level in a highly numerate relevant discipline.

Desirable Criteria 

• Membership of, or skills and experience that would allow you to be recognised one of the main analytical professions, GORS, GSS, GES or GSR.
• Commercial awareness and familiarity with outsourcing digital, analytical and research projects
• A good understanding of the strategic and operational challenges faced by police forces and fire services.
• Experience in police systems and processes for receiving and recording reports of crime, including knowledge of the National Crime Recording Standard and Home Office Counting Rules;
• Understanding of the role of inspection and how it contributes to improving policing.

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 Monday 5th August 2024.

Provide some basic personal information;

1. 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;
2. 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.
3. 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'. For more information, please see Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 (HTML) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

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.

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 security 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.