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Job summary

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) role is to make sure that through levelling up, everyone has the same opportunity to flourish. It means people everywhere living longer and more fulfilling lives and benefitting from sustained rises in living standards and well-being.

The Private Rented Sector and Leasehold (PRS&L) Directorate offers an exciting, dynamic, and friendly working environment, with the opportunity to improve the lives of millions of renters and leaseholders. PRS&L leads the policy and reform programmes for the private rented sector and for leaseholders, high priorities for the Secretary of State. Our work includes delivering the Renter Reform Bill, the Levelling Up Mission to drive up standards of privately rented homes, Leasehold Reform legislation and reform of the Leasehold Advisory Service arm’s length body.

As Executive Assistant to the Deputy Directors , you will be responsible for supporting them day-to-day, helping them to prioritise their time effectively, shape their agenda and perform their role as effectively as possible.

The role is fast paced and we are looking for someone with excellent organisation and communication skills. The role requires you to be both reactive and proactive. You will have constant engagement with senior officials and work with many colleagues across different teams and grades.

Job description

The responsibilities of the role include:

• Proactively managing the diaries of the Deputy Directors - resolving conflicting schedule requests and efficiently manage their time
• Comprehensively briefing the DD on their diary and issues to be dealt with.
• Arranging travel, overnight accommodation and managing expenses
• Co-ordinating internal and external meetings to ensure things run smoothly. This includes commissioning agendas and briefings, booking rooms, greeting and escorting of visitors, printing papers, managing technology.
• Providing general business support as required including, minute-taking, maintaining records, email filing and resolving IT issues.
• Organising large scale events such as Directorate away days, stakeholder roundtables and board meetings.
• Maintaining key business documents (organisation charts, induction packs, staff lists etc)

Person specification

We are looking for some with:

•    Excellent organisational skills and an eye for detail – the role requires very frequent reprioritisation in reaction to short notice changes and requests and managing a variety of task 
•    Resilience to working in a pressurised, fast-paced environment, which requires high levels of personal organisation
•    Confidence in working with the senior leadership team 
•    Ability to concisely summarise a wide range of information. 
•    A strong sense of initiative and self-motivation- although the role sits within a team, the role requires responsibility of your own workload often needing to be set by yourself rather than your line manager.
•    Ability to communicate and build effective working relationships with internal and external colleagues – you will be expected to make arrangements on behalf of and for senior members of the civil service, with professionalism and integrity.

Behaviours

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

• Working Together

• Delivering at Pace

• 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 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).  

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 (Lead Behaviour): Managing a Quality Service

Behaviour: Working together

Behaviour: 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 behaviour and strength based questions as listed in the advert. The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.

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

Behaviours: Working together, Managing a Quality Service and 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. 

EO salary 

• The salary for this role is £28,412 (London) or £25,324(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: 

• London 

• Wolverhampton

• Bristol

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES: 

Sifting is envisaged to take place from w/c 27th March 2023 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. 

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 

Candidate Pack Information 

Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. 

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 :Emily Allcock

• Email :Emily.allcock@levellingup.gov.uk

Recruitment team :

• Email :recruitment@communities.gov.uk