About the job

Job summary

Do you want to help shape the future culture of the Royal Navy? Are you a proactive leader looking for a new challenge in a complex and interesting organisation? Are you looking for an opportunity to work in a fast-paced team where no day is the same? Are you interested in making a difference and playing a role in evolving the culture and leadership development of the Royal Navy Enterprise?

The Royal Navy Culture and Leadership Team is looking for a proactive individual who is ready for a new challenge! This relatively new and small team and still developing its breadth of operations so will provide an exciting challenge for someone who is looking to make a difference and play a part in shaping the team and culture of a large and complex organisation like the Royal Navy. The role’s primary function will be around governance, data-management and a secretarial function, but as a small team, there is an opportunity to get involved in the varied work the team does, as well as many learning and development opportunities.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week. 

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.  This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements. 

Job description

The Royal Navy’s Culture and Leadership team was established in April 2023 working direct to First Sea Lord and the Navy Board (NAVB). The Team coheres the work across Navy Command and the Ministry of Defence more widely with a focus on building upon the culture and climate in which our people work ensuring trust, inclusivity, empowerment, mutual respect, professionalism, self-leadership, self-accountability and self-awareness are the norm and where every individual has the tools and strategies to support the levels of psychological and physical fitness required to deliver the Departments operational commitments.

Through a series of tangible, achievable and evidenced-based solutions, the Culture and Leadership Team seeks to achieve organisational and cultural change in accordance with the NAVB’s priorities.

The post holder will be responsible for helping to design, deliver and evaluate the Governance and Monitoring of the Culture Change Programme (particularly Professional Standards and Leadership Development) in line with Head Office intent. The Culture Change Programme will deliver a strategy and a plan for creating a modern Royal Navy, including benefits, indicators of effective performance and metrics. The post holder will be pivotal in the Governance Team to design, deliver, embed and evaluate these solutions.

Responsibilities

The Culture and Leadership Team is a relatively new, friendly, fun and supportive team. The postholder will lead on governance to support Head Governance and Engagement and will also be expected to support other Culture Projects as the Royal Navy Culture Team implements its strategy and priorities. The postholder will have the opportunity to develop project and change management skills that are widely employable.

The Postholder will support the Head of Culture Governance and Engagement, and the Culture and Leadership Director on a variety of tasks, such as:

• Supporting work around the Culture Change Governance Programme, including helping to set up and manage the governance structure.
• Supporting the management of the various culture boards, steering groups and working groups, which may include development of Terms of References, actions and minutes as required, as well as an understanding of best practice and alternative options.
• Cohering the Culture Strategy to monitor the various action plans and pilots currently running which will help set a successful 3-5 yr plan with measures of effectiveness and implement innovative solutions related to the Culture Strategy.
• Developing and managing a Culture Metrics Framework to monitor culture change across the organisation, including data analysis.
• Provide innovative ideas to help improve organisational learning.
• Collation of stakeholder risks and mitigation plans for review as part of the governance process.
• Be a key point of contact to helping us understand the ongoing work in Whitehall around culture in the Ministry of Defence, and close liaison with Army OP TEAMWORK and RAF programmes.
• Line management of 1x Executive Officer and supporting Fast Streamers.

Person specification

Experience

Essential

• You will have strong data-analysis and IT skills and understand the impact on the organisation of emerging trends in data tools, analysis techniques and data usage. 
• You are able to use your initiative, solve problems and deliver solutions. You are proactive, well organised and able to prioritise your time and workload.
• You have excellent interpersonal skills and are able to work collaboratively in a small team. You are able to build relationships and can win the confidence of people at all levels, including senior leaders overseeing the work of the team.
• You have a strong understanding of probity, good governance and are able to deal with confidential information sensitively.
• You will have strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to present complex messages to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. 

Desirable

• Experience and understanding of corporate governance and standards.
• Line management experience.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,080, Ministry of Defence contributes £11,631 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

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

This vacancy assesses candidates through Success Profiles, the new recruitment framework used within the Civil Service and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. Your suitability for the role will be assessed using the Success Profile elements that have been chosen for this campaign. Each element will be scored accordingly. We welcome applications from everyone irrespective of gender and ethnic group. Appointment will be based on merit alone.

As part of the application, you will be asked to complete:

• Candidates will be required to provide CV details to include job history; qualification details and previous skills and experience.  
• Statement of Suitability (Personal statement) (500 words maximum)

At sift and interview, you will be assessed against the following Success Profiles Behaviours:

• Changing and Improving
• Communicating & Influencing
• Leadership

In an event where a high volume of applications are received, an initial sift will take place using the CV, Statement of Suitability and the Behaviour ‘Changing and Improving’.

Successful candidates shortlisted for interview will be tested using Behaviour based questions, on all behaviours listed on the advert.

This advert will be open until 19 April 2024.

The sift will take place week commencing from 22 April 2024.

Interviews will take place in person in Whale Island, Portsmouth, week commencing 6 May 2024.

We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates will change. You will be provided with sufficient notice of the confirmed dates.

Further details and instructions will be provided closer to the scheduled interview.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk.  

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.  

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn. 

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 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.