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Job summary

This is a unique and exciting opportunity to interact with senior stakeholders within the department, across Whitehall and beyond. No two days are the same and you’ll have the opportunity to get involved in a wide variety of different tasks, as well as experience first-hand how private office and the Commercial Directorate operates. 
 
The successful applicant will be part of a busy team supporting the Commercial Senior Leadership, which is made up of a Director and six Deputy Directors. The individual will manage the Director’s Diary Manager and work with them to deliver a quality support service, which enables the Senior Leadership and the wider directorate to function effectively. The successful applicant will work closely with other private offices, members of the Commercial Directorate and key external/internal stakeholders; proactively anticipating short- and long-term needs.   
 
Delivering a first-rate service will require you to balance long-term planning and the management of immediate needs, giving the successful applicant an opportunity to build a proven track record in administration, strategic thinking and problem-solving.   
 
This exciting role sits within the Commercial Directorate at DLUHC, a friendly team of subject experts who support the delivery of the Department’s priorities, offering an insight into the breadth of work at DLUHC. The Directorate has a varied portfolio which includes the Commercial, Property, Security, Project Delivery, and Risk professions.

Job description

Key responsibilities 
  
Reporting to the Commercial Director, the appointed individual will be responsible for: 

•    Acting as a sounding board and trusted advisor for the Director; including challenging and supporting officials to provide high quality advice including on sensitive issues, and articulating priorities to the organisation and key stakeholders.  
  
•    Ensuring that the directorate’s work is effectively prioritised, commissioned and delivered: 

• Understanding, articulating, and driving forward the Director’s priorities, working closely with the Directorate Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and wider stakeholders to deliver.

• Actively managing the Director’s inbox, knowing how and when to sight the Director on urgent issues, proactively finding responses or solutions where appropriate.  

• Horizon scanning to identify and analyse emerging issues and ensure alignment across the portfolio.

• Leading the co-ordination and completion of Departmental commissions and Cross-Whitehall corporate reporting as required. This includes but is not limited to ministerial commissions, briefings for Director General and Permanent Secretary, reporting to the centre, and internal reporting of Directorate performance at Corporate Portfolio Board. 

 
•    Acting as Business Manager / PMO for the directorate’s work as part of Corporate Services Portfolio:

•   Own the monthly reporting of the directorate’s programmes and risks.

• Producing agendas and papers for meetings, ensuring actions are aligned with priorities and delivered within set timescales. This includes acting as Secretariat for the Commercial Senior Leadership meeting, monthly People and Finance Performance meeting, and oversight of minutes and actions for other Performance meetings.

• Manage the Directorate’s budget and finance processes, working closely with the Finance & HR Business Partners To include but not limited to:
  

• Leading on pay forecasting; ensuring accurate and insightful finance reporting for the Director and wider Senior Leadership Team; a key part of this reporting is drafting papers for and presenting at monthly People and Finance Performance meetings;

•     Leading on building awareness of and compliance with finance processes;

•    Managing the Purchase Order process for the Commercial Director’s office and ensuring timely payment of invoices to Other Government Department's (OGDs), most notably Cabinet Office and Govt Legal Department for services provided and loaned staff recharges;

•   Ensuring adequate record keeping for invoices received on behalf of Commercial Director.

•    Leading on communications and engagement activities within the Directorate, ensuring information flow between the Director and teams, and accurate and timely dissemination of key messages for all colleagues. This includes taking responsibility for the forward plan and agendas for monthly Directorate and Leadership meetings, People Survey action planning, Directorate Away Day planning and other engagement activities. 
 
•    Working closely with the HR Business Partner to support the Director with all aspects of the recruitment cycle including:

• Overseeing Recruitment, HR and Onboarding processes across the Directorate working with line managers to raise awareness and ensure compliance;

• Supporting line managers to ensure new starters within the team are onboarded;

• Holding weekly touch base sessions with Recruitment Business Partner, HR Business Partner and vacancy holders to discuss campaign progression;

• Updating the directorate recruitment tracker and sighting SLT on progress or issues.

•    Line Managing the Director’s Diary Manager.

• Providing visible leadership and example of best practice to Diary Managers to Deputy Directors within Commercial SLT, setting standards, building capability and supporting personal development.

•    Candidate will be expected to travel to London on occasional basis.

Person specification

We are looking for a highly motivated individual with excellent strategy, communication and business management skills. You will be a self-starter with the ability to deliver under pressure; manage multiple and competing priorities; write clearly to engage and inform senior decision-makers, and; liaise effectively with a range of cross-governmental stakeholders. In return this is an opportunity to work in a fun, friendly Directorate at the heart of a number of DLUHC’s priorities, and the government’s priorities for Levelling Up. 
 
Key Skills and Experience 
 
•    Experience of working in a pressurised, fast-paced environment, which requires high levels of personal organisation and resilience.  
•    Experience of building relationships with a particular focus on senior stakeholders, demonstrating sensitivity, tact and an appreciation of other perspectives and views to find compromise.  
•    Strong organisational skills and eye for detail, with sound judgement and analytical skills to take or inform evidence-based decisions.  
•    Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with ability to persuade stakeholders of pertinent information for effective decision making to underpin Departmental delivery.  
•    Ability to think and act in a strategic way, making links across policy and organisational boundaries, and with partners across the department.  
 
Desirable Experience 
 
•    Experience of working in a Private Office or covering in one. 
•    Experience of working as a Business Manager or Project Manager. 
•    Managing budgets. 
•    Experience of senior stakeholder management. 
•    Experience of line management.  
•    Ability to work independently at pace.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Delivering at Pace

• Communicating and Influencing

• Making Effective Decisions

• Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role

• An environment with flexible working options

• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

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.  

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).  

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 

Delivering at Pace (Lead Behaviour)

Making Effective Decisions 

Communicating and Influencing 

Managing a Quality Service  

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 progress straight to assessment/interview  

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

Behaviour 

Strength 

Questions during interview stage will be as listed in the advert. 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, Managing a Quality Service, Delivering at Pace  

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. 

SEO salary 

• The salary for this role is £37,064 (National). 

• For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. 

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: 

• Manchester

• Wolverhampton 

• Leeds

• Bristol

• Darlington

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES: 

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 20th of April 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. Due to the length of time CTC checks can take, our HR Shared Services team will contact reserve list candidates for London based roles to commence CTC checks. 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. 

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.

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 Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK

• nationals of the Republic of Ireland

• nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)

• relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service

• relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service

• certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals

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.

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name :Alice Stacey

• Email :alice.stacey@levellingup.gov.uk

Recruitment team :