About the job

Job summary

The Areas Directorate is a joint unit between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and Department for Business and Trade (DBT). Our mission is to empower places - from rural communities to major cities, from prosperous places to those facing challenges in the modern economy, to bolster their potential through boosting economic growth. We lead within the UK Government on local growth and levelling up initiatives, supporting a range of projects and programmes across towns centres and high streets, local enterprise partnerships and local authorities. We work at different levels, from small neighbourhoods to large sub-national strategies.

This is an exciting opportunity to join the London and South East Area Team to drive economic growth and levelling up across Surrey and East and West Sussex, supporting an ambitious programme of engagement and devolution which will enable government to deliver in its commitments in the Levelling Up White Paper. As Area Coordinator, you will have a unique and varied role in bringing your deep knowledge and detailed understanding of local issues and opportunities to bear on government decision-making, supporting DBT and DLUHC priorities and holding expertise on sectors, investment, relevant industries, devolution, and local government reform.

You will manage relationships with a range of stakeholders including local authority chief executives, economic development officers, business organisations, and others. You will develop strong day-to-day productive relationships with policy officials across a range of areas, including housing, sector teams, and transport. You will often contribute to advice regarding particular regional or local challenges or opportunities for the team’s wider area, and will be responsible, either directly or with the team or departmental colleagues, for preparing high quality briefing material tailored for the audience (usually Ministers and Senior Civil Servants).

Job description

Responsibilities:

• Maintain government’s relationships on local growth and levelling up in Surrey and East and West Sussex, engaging with and supporting local authorities, business representative groups and other local partners in their interactions with central government, as required.

• Work with other members of the team, DLUHC colleagues and external partners to support the transition of local enterprise partnership functions into local authorities.

• Support the delivery of Levelling Up Partnerships and Long-Term Plan for Towns programmes in Hastings and Rother, working with the wider team, policy officials and local partners.

• Oversee the production of high quality regional economic intelligence, ensuring recent impacts and trends are reported and understood within government.

• Feeding ‘on the ground’ knowledge of the area and places into design, appraisal, assessment, and decision-making processes across both DBT and DLUHC.

• Support the delivery of government funded projects through regular performance management reviews; supporting wider departmental monitoring and assurance as necessary (notably for three Town Deals in West and East Sussex and various Levelling Up Fund projects).

• Manage the day-to-day flow of commissions, briefings, visits, events, correspondence and PQs and team priorities.

• Contribute to team culture, effectiveness and identity by participating in key workstreams on wellbeing, learning and development and strategy. 

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Have strong communication skills (both written and oral) alongside the ability to develop and maintain positive working relationships with a variety of senior stakeholders.

• Have, or be willing to develop, an in-depth knowledge of the economic challenges and opportunities across Surrey, East and West Sussex.

• Be comfortable working at pace, effectively managing competing priorities; using good judgement and decision-making to prioritise accordingly.

• Feel comfortable building positive working relationships with senior external stakeholders such local authority leaders.

• Support the wider corporate objectives of the Areas Directorate and London & South East Area Team.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,400, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £8,688 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.

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. 

  

We would strongly recommend that applicants get in touch with the vacancy manager to find out more information about this 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 

 

DLUHC want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.  

 

Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).  

 

At application stage you will be asked to upload a CV document. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage. 

 

Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.  

 

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors. 

 

When writing your application, remember: 

• The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.  
• Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.  
• If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!) 

 

 

At sift, we will be assessing 

 

Behaviour 1 (lead behaviour) - Seeing The Big Picture 

 

Behaviour 2 - Communicating and Influencing

 

Behaviour 3 - Working Together

 

Behaviour 4 - Delivering at Pace

 

There is a 250 word limit per question. 

 

In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview. 

 

 

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements:    

Behaviour – Seeing The Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Delivering at Pace

Strength 

Ability

The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.  

Candidates invited to interview may be given a presentation or task to complete. 

 

In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profile Elements: 

 

Behaviours: (Seeing The Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Delivering at Pace) 

Ability: (Yes) 

Strengths: (Yes) 

 

We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – 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.

HEO salary 

• The salary for this role is £35,400.
• 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. 

  

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION: 

• London  

 

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role. 

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES: 

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 11/03/24 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 in 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. 

 

CTC (Counter-terrorism Clearance): 

Important note 

 
Successful candidates for roles based in our 2 Marsham Street building must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete. 
 
Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the CTC security checks – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. Please refer to the DLUHC Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Counter Terrorism Clearance (CTC). Thank you. 
 
Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by DLUHC. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database. 

 

Candidate Pack Information 

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. 

Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the DLUHC candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules 

 

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. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist 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.