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Job summary

The Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) aims to help create great places to live and work across the country and to back communities to come together and thrive. 
 
This is an exciting opportunity in the Policy Unit and Private Office Directorate within the Public Appointments team. This role is unique in gaining an insight and developing a broad understanding of how the Department operates and the organisations within.   
 
The Public Appointments team delivers a crucial service to Ministers and the wider department in the delivery of appointments to DLUHC Arms Length Bodies. High calibre appointments are important in helping to deliver the departments objectives. The successful candidate will be part of a dedicated centralised centre of expertise working across all of DLUHC’s policy areas. This is often a fast-paced, high profile role which involves a wide range of stakeholders across the department and beyond, including working closely with Ministers’ Private Offices, senior stakeholders, Cabinet Office and No.10. It is a combination of policy and operational delivery, managing a high-quality service to Ministers, policy teams and candidates, regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The role also offers opportunities to deliver change management and service improvement. 

Our Arms Length Bodies need strong and diverse Boards to help shape the vision of their organisations and support their Executive Teams in fulfilling their statutory functions and deliver their strategic objectives. Appointments to these Boards are made by Ministers, based on advice from the public Appointments team. This post delivers an end-to-end service for Ministers that offers them a choice of excellent candidates from a wide and diverse talent pool that is representative of the public and communities that they serve.   

The role involves working in a flexible way in undertaking other duties to  support wider central commissions as required that are commensurate with the grade and level of responsibility of these posts.  You will operate with a significant amount of autonomy on a day-to-day basis. 

Job description

•    Professionally deliver high profile complex board recruitment campaigns. 
•    Ensuring compliance with the Public Appointments Governance Code. 
•    High quality advice to stakeholders including ministers, selection panels and policy teams.  
•    Design innovative and enticing outreach strategies.  
•    Helping develop and embed MI to track progress and enable strategic planning.  
•    Look for ways to continuously improve and streamline processes.   
•    Ability to build credible and trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, internal and external.  
•    Support with the production of central co-ordinated commissions on campaigns, management information including diversity statistics.  
•    Support the implementation of a diversity strategy.   
•    Aptitude for creativity and problem solving. 
•    Line management of a small team 
•    Reporting to Grade 7 Senior Manager of Public Appointments.

Person specification

About you 

You will have outstanding interpersonal skills, be articulate and credible to build relationships at all levels within and outside of the Department. You will display confidence in dealing with senior leaders and providing trusted expert advice, as well as being comfortable handing challenging conversations. 
 
You will be very organised with the ability to prioritise, manage workloads and work flexibly to changing demands. You will demonstrate a high degree of discretion and a sensitivity towards candidates/information/data, maintaining confidentiality.   
 
You will be able to quickly grasp processes whilst considering regulations to deliver high quality recruitment campaigns that comply with the Governments Code for Public Appointments. 
 
You will have high quality drafting skills and the ability draft concise submissions and briefing notes. 
 
Essential  

Experience working in recruitment and in a fast- paced environment. 
 

Behaviours

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

• Making Effective Decisions

• Communicating and Influencing

• Managing a Quality Service

• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £37,064, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £10,007 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• 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 

Behaviour 1 (lead behaviour) - Making Effective Decisions 

Behaviour 2 - Communicating and Influencing 

Behaviour 3 - Delivering at Pace 

Experience - Please explain your experience of working in fast-paced environments

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 

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: (Managing a Quality Service, 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. 

SEO salary 

• The salary for this role is £40,390 (London) or £37,064 (National). 

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

 
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 

• Darlington* 

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. 

*Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus (DEC) is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service. This role is based at DLUHC and we will be joined on the campus by: 

• HM Treasury  

• Department for International Trade 

• Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy  

• Office for National Statistics  

• Department for Education 

For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack. 

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES: 

Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 21/08/23 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. 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 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 :Gabriella Onorati

• Email :gabriella.onorati@levellingup.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email :recruitment@communities.gov.uk