About the job

Job summary

Making Tax Digital Programme (MTD) is delivering a fundamental change to tax to help digitalise UK business. This is a rare opportunity to work at the centre of a major Government transformation programme. MTD is part of the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP), at the heart of HMRC’s Tax Administration Strategy and one of HMRC’s highest priorities. This cross-society transformation drives extensive interest across the political, business and tax spectrum. We are leading the way in the delivery of modern services for customers which will change how millions of businesses and landlords interact with the tax system, replacing the burden of the annual tax return with digital record keeping and quarterly updates. MTD will make it easier for individuals and businesses to get their tax right and will help reduce the amount of tax lost to avoidable errors.

Job description

This role is at the centre of everything that MTD does, it is a critical role to make sure that the programme is on track, working to budget and delivering effectively, efficiently and on time. 

We are looking for an exceptional individual who has experience of both Programme Management and PMO Leadership in order to fulfil the requirements of this role.

Role and Responsibilities:

• Build and maintain a strong delivery-focused programme team. Provide leadership and direct larger multi-disciplinary teams to deliver successfully.
• Responsible for identifying success criteria, set project controls and be accountable for performance. Monitor and control progress, engage fully with assurance and respond to recommendations.
• Develop effective programme plans, control frameworks and strategies. Create a culture of continuous improvement of programme management processes and standards within the department. Drive innovation and learn from experience. Identify interdependencies, common capability and opportunities across programmes and the department. Identify common capabilities and opportunities for linking up. Re-use and share methods and resources. Drive implementation to realise efficiencies.
• Lead the development of the business case, alignment with senior stakeholders and agreement through Programme Board / Management Board / HMT.
• Own the integrated programme plan and all end to end planning for Making Tax Digital
• Develop and agree budgets for the programme and forecast actual costs against them.
• Identify future programme capability and capacity needs and strategies to meet and deliver them.
• Provide visible and effective leadership to deliver outcomes. Lead the PMO, develop clear vision, standards and champion the use of best practice project management standards and processes. Provide direction and guidance for the PMO and the Programme through the Senior Leadership Team.
• Provide strategic leadership in monitoring benefit delivery and to maximise benefits from the programme.
• Create an environment in which projects can succeed – working effectively together and managing dependencies. Deliver benefits and outcomes set out in business case.
• Quality assure the dependency management process, work with senior stakeholders to resolve issues and act as a link between the programme and business governance.
• Establish and maintain governance arrangements for the delivery of projects. Define clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities that align with organisational practice. Monitor the effectiveness of controls and ensure that recommendations from external reviews are acted upon.
• Establish and implement protocols to define and change the scope of the programme.

Person specification

The successful candidate will bring their experience of working in and alongside major transformation – including leading the practical and operational implementation of change - with outstanding leadership skills and delivery focus.

The successful applicant will need to demonstrate relevant experience and effective delivery of the following essential criteria.

Essential Criteria:

• Experienced Programme Manager with strong evidence of successfully managing and delivering large-scale, complex programmes, with a proven ability to balance challenging trade-offs and tight deadlines
• Experience of successfully leading a PMO in a large and complex organisation.
• A strong communicator, with a proven ability to successfully influence internal and external partners to secure mutually beneficial outcomes
• Inclusive leadership skills - able to demonstrate the capacity to lead in a complex operational environment with evidence of developing, nurturing and motivating high performing, diverse and talented teams, and able to create a culture that promotes diversity, innovation and delivers results
• Experience of managing business cases and budgets on a large-scale programme
• Good understanding of Agile Frameworks

Desirable Qualification

• A recognised Project Management Qualification

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £75,000, HM Revenue and Customs 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

Application:

To apply for this post, you will need to complete an online application by submitting the following:

• A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
• A Statement of Suitability explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the criteria in the person specification.

Your CV and Statement of Suitability should reflect your most relevant and recent skills and experience in relation to the role. Therefore, we recommend that each document is no more than two A4 pages long.

By not submitting a CV and a Statement of Suitability will mean we only have limited information to assess your application against the person specification. Please ensure both documents contain your full name.

If you encounter any issues with your application or don’t receive an acknowledgement within 48 hours, please contact Sarah Hawes at  scs.resourcing@hmrc.gov.uk 

Shortlist

An application pre-sift will be conducted by the SCS Recruitment Team followed by an in-depth review by the Vacancy Holder and Panel.

The panel will assess and select applicants who demonstrate the best fit with the role by considering the evidence provided against the criteria set out in the Person Specification. Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application. The closing date for applications is 19th August 2024 and a shortlist decision is expected to be made by 6th September 2024. All candidates will be notified of the outcome shortly afterwards.

All shortlisted candidates can request to have an informal conversation with the vacancy holder, Craig Ogilvie. This is not an assessment phase but is an opportunity for each candidate to gain greater insight into the context of the role. This is optional, but highly recommended.

All Criminal Record Checks applications are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.

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.