About the job

Job summary

From the building the homes the country needs, unlocking opportunities for levelling up and regeneration across the UK, delivering a fairer deal for renters, landlords and leaseholders, to continuing our mission to end rough sleeping – DLUHC leads on high-profile government policies that dominate the national conversation.

The Department for Levelling Up is offering an exciting opportunity for a highly organised individual to deliver visits and engagements for the ministerial team. You will be responsible for planning and implementing high quality, purposeful and engaging visits or events for the Secretary of State and junior ministers. This is a fast-paced role, with the team having to turn around high-profile visits or events at short notice to accompany announcements or respond to breaking stories, so we need visits officers who can work at the same fast pace of our busy news agenda.

Ideally you will have some experience in organising visits and be able to build strong relationships with officials across the dept, external stakeholders and the political team. Your organisational skills will be second to none, and you will also have strong multi-tasking and implementation skills. You should understand the communications landscape and how Ministerial Visits fits into the wider communications strategy for the department.

We are a close knit, supportive team that works alongside digital and media teams to create big media moments around visits, speeches or events; you will also work with campaigns teams, internal comms and ministerial offices. If you are a bright, motivated and creative individual, looking for an exciting role in a high-performing Ministerial visits and events team, this could be the job for you.

This role can be based at a number of regional offices but frequent travel to our London office will be required given this is a Ministerial facing role. Out of hours working is a key feature of this role and you will be included on a duty rota for weekday evenings and weekends. We particularly welcome candidates from an ethnic minority background and other underrepresented groups to apply, as we work to continually improve our ability to represent the places and communities we support through our work.

Job description

Responsibilities

• Lead on a number of domestic Ministerial events, feeding into the development of a strategic pipeline of opportunities, and collaborating with colleagues on the horizon scanner and invites triage processes.
• Planning, co-ordinating and leading on polished Ministerial events, visits and engagement opportunities.
• Ensuring Ministerial briefing documents are of a high standard, and providing the Ministerial team and advisers with what is needed, in good time.
• Ensuring all visits are of a high standard with all logistics and scenarios planned out ahead of time.
• Evaluating visits and continuously striving for excellence, learning lessons and implementing best practice as appropriate.
• Building and maintaining excellent relationships with colleagues of all grades within the department as well as working closely with external partners on managing events and visits.

Person specification

Candidates for this role must be able to demonstrate they can meet the following essential criteria:

• You will have excellent organisational skills and resilience, able to work on several projects at the same time to deliver a drumbeat of visits that are high-quality, purposeful and engaging.
• You will have solid writing skills, able to put together briefing products to support ministers ahead of visits, providing the information they need clearly and concisely.
• Strong interpersonal and influencing skills, and experience of nurturing excellent relationships with internal colleagues and external contacts as part of your work – both in respect of securing visit options but also in terms of building relationships quickly on location on visits to ensure they run as smoothly as possible.
• Very comfortable working in a fast-paced environment and reacting quickly and confidently to breaking issues.
• You should have some political awareness and an understanding of how this might impact visits or events.
• Comfortable working on visits and events involving managing media facilities on location. We will ensure that you are fully supported and have the opportunity to develop your career as a skilled communications professional.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,178, 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 and Strengths.

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.  

 

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 - Making Effective Decisions 

Behaviour 2 - Communicating and Influencing 

Behaviour 3 - Delivering at Pace 

Experience (Lead Sift) - Please set out your experience to date, including examples of where you have organised visits or events for high profile individuals or large organisations.

 

There is a 250 word limit per question. 

 

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

Behaviour – Making Effective Decisions, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace

Experience 

Strength 

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

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

 

Behaviours: Making Effective Decisions, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace

Experience- 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 (London) or £32,178 (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. 

  

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION: 

• London 
• Wolverhampton 
• Bristol

 

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 23/01/2024 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 n 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.