About the job

Job summary

We are looking for an enthusiastic and proactive Portfolio Insights Officer to join the Regeneration, Housing and Planning Portfolio Office and help us achieve our ambition to improve portfolio performance reporting and oversight. This is an exciting and varied role that will be split between three key areas: Providing data analysis and insight for the leadership team and wider portfolio; Supporting our business case pipeline providing guidance and review to teams across the portfolio; Providing general support across the portfolio office for our regular activities including governance, reporting and continuous improvement as well as being an active member of our team.

The RHP portfolio is central to the government’s ambition to level up the country by empowering locally-led regeneration, and ensuring access to high quality, secure and affordable housing. This includes support for migrants arriving via humanitarian and resettlement routes. You will be joining a friendly, inclusive team with a strong focus on your professional growth and the chance to gain a fascinating overview of cross-departmental work to support your longer-term development.

We are dedicated to building a diverse team that represents residents in our communities, and an inclusive culture where everyone feels they can be themselves at work, belong in the organisation and can speak up to challenge. We want everyone to be able to contribute to the success of our organisation, regardless of your background.

Job description

Provide insight for leadership about the portfolio and support the running of the portfolio:

• Gather data from across the portfolio to update the central data hub, extracting data from a range of sources including programme and portfolio reporting, a range of different documentation and systems.
• Analyse data to identify trends and anomalies, building up a picture of our performance across the portfolio. Complete deep dives on areas that spark interest and finding out the story behind the data.
• Clearly translate outputs from data analysis to tell a compelling story to a range of stakeholders which are visual and easily understandable for example by building dashboards to distil complex information into easily digestible chunks (eg in Excel and PowerBI) 
• Support the review of existing reporting processes and streamlining the current approach including identifying and implementing ways to improvements and developments for the data hub

Support our Business Case Assurance Process:

• Support the development of a Portfolio Office Centre of Excellence for business cases providing support to programme teams as they draft cases and engage in our assurance activity
• Build and maintain a business case pipeline tracking upcoming programmes including extracting information from business cases to build a clear view of upcoming milestones, metrics and risks for the portfolio to feed in to the data hub

Provide general support within our Portfolio Office and across our Programme Teams

• Work closely with stakeholders and project teams across the portfolio, building strong relationships to become a trusted advisor whilst supporting insight gathering alongside regular reporting and governance activities
• Support continuous improvement activities to improve processes within the Portfolio Office identifying ongoing opportunities to improve the support we offer our leadership team and the wider portfolio
• Contribute to the development and smooth operation of the Portfolio Office and wider teams engaging

Person specification

We are looking for someone who enjoys exploring data looking for trends, digging into the detail to understand patterns and anomalies and is a great communicator able to share with diverse audiences. You will have an eye for detail and strong analytical skills. We are looking for an individual who is curious about data, how things work and how to improve them, as well as where the team can make links and add value to the wider work of the Department. We are looking for someone who thrives on delivering a quality service at pace, within a complex and changing landscape, and who is confident in helping build our performance function. You will need to pair this with the ability to see the bigger picture, alongside strength in working collaboratively with a range of stakeholders.

Essential criteria

• Experience with data analysis and building dashboards in Excel and PowerBI to collate large amounts of data in to a structured, organised and usable data hub
• Confident communicator with the ability to communicate complex information and insight in easily understandable ways to a range of audiences demonstrating strong stakeholder skills
• Curiosity about data with the ability to follow a lead and dig to find the bigger story whilst being confident to work with ambiguity and uncertainty
• Experience of providing analytical review of documents, reviewing and improving processes providing constructive feedback and support to improve
• Confident self starter, able to achieve results in ambiguous and complex organisational contexts and the ability to adapt and change direction at pace juggling conflicting and changing priorities with flexibility to pick up work to support the team

Desirable criteria

• Experience working on business cases - drafting or reviewing
• Experience providing assurance support with constructive feedback and support for improvements
• Experience in project delivery in either a project, programme or portfolio role
• Experience of delivering change projects, building organisational capability and / or culture
• Relevant Project or Portfolio Management qualification (such as MSP, MoP etc), or the willingness to work towards one

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £38,732, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £10,457 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.  

Please contact the vacancy manager if you have any questions about the role.    

As part of our pre-employment checking process we will be using your CV to confirm your job history. Please note that by providing us with your CV you are consenting to us using the information enclosed as part of the checking process.  

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  

In your CV and covering letter, please include:  
 
a. why you are interested in the role; 
b. how you meet the essential skills and experience required  

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of experience, behaviour, ability and strength based questions as listed in the advert. The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.  

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 

Strengths: Yes

Behaviours: Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Managing a Quality Service, Changing and Improving

Ability: Yes 

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 

SEO salary 

• The salary for this role is £38,732 (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 

• Birmingham
• Wolverhampton  

Sift and Interview dates 

Sifting is envisaged to take place from 18th April 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. 

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. 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.