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To apply for this role you will need to submit a CV and statement of suitability. These need to be merged into one document. When submitting your application Applied will ask you to upload a CV, when doing this you should upload your merged document of your CV and statement of suitability. There are further details in the Selection Process section further below in this advert.

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If those don't work please email scs@levellingup.gov.uk with your application and/or CV before the submission deadline. Any applications received after the deadline may not be considered.

Short Summary

The Leasehold, Land and Planning Systems Directorate sits within the Regeneration, Housing & Planning Group. The Directorate leads on leasehold reform and legislation; a major digital planning programme; sponsorship of HM Land Registry; and a wide range of vital planning policy and delivery such as local and neighbourhood plans, planning applications, permitted development rights, compulsory purchase, gypsy & traveller policy and sponsorship of the Planning Inspectorate.

The Planning Development Plans division delivers policy and implementation on strategic plan, local plans and neighbourhood plans; Street votes; gypsy and traveller planning policy; and sponsorship of the Planning Inspectorate (PINS), the appellate body for planning applications.

We are dedicated to building a diverse team that represents residents in our communities and an inclusive culture where everyone feels they belong in the organisation, can be themselves at work and can speak up to challenge. We want everyone to be able to contribute to the success of our organisation, regardless of background.

Job Description

We are recruiting for a Deputy Director, Planning Development Plans. We work in a specialised, fast-paced environment. You will be leading teams of committed planners, policy experts, finance experts, and procurement specialists, operating across a broad set of policies and programmes with considerable ministerial interest. The work broadly divides into four areas.

First, as a member of the Directorate’s Senior Leadership Team you will have significant opportunities and responsibilities for the leadership, motivation, inclusion, and support of everyone across the Planning Development Plans division and our wider programme. This includes our ambitious corporate objectives around diversity and inclusion, recruitment, wellbeing, skills and development, relationships with external stakeholders and analysis.

Second, within the team, you will lead a group of officials who are responsible for getting plans in place across the country. This is no easy job: the team navigates law, policy, propriety matters, economics, and politics to work with local stakeholders to develop spatial plans for growth, jobs, homes, and the environment. Your role is to support and empower them, providing steers on challenging cases, upholding the highest standards of prudence and propriety.

Third, also within your team a group of officials lead on the Department’s flagship Neighbourhood Planning policy. This team undertakes a complex mix of policy work, procurement and contract management, stakeholder engagement and financial management. You will need to have a good understanding of Managing Public Money, an eye for detail and the capacity to make operational decisions at pace.

Fourth, the final part of your team works on reforming development plans to ensure that in the future the plan-making system delivers more plans in more places to meet more of the country’s needs for homes, infrastructure, environmental enhancement, and well-designed places. You will support the team to advise ministers on strategy and practical legislative and implementation opportunities and risks.

Key accountabilities

• As Deputy Director you will be responsible for shaping the future agenda of your team and its policies, providing the challenge and oversight required to ensure a constant focus on successful delivery.

• To succeed in this new context, you will need to build trust and understanding across your whole division, bringing everyone together and moving forward with a shared sense of purpose as we enter a new era of delivery, in a new directorate.

• You will develop advice to help ministers navigate often uncertain and complex policy environments - demonstrating integrity and propriety in all you do –while building the expertise and ability required within the team to deliver on the significant levels of ministerial ambition in all areas of work.

• You will commission and oversee very high-quality written work –from policy briefings to public strategies –and will take the lead on briefing ministers and senior external leaders.

• As Deputy Director you also play an important role in maintaining a healthy culture and support on both people and wellbeing issues within the teams –including via the development of team-specific people plans, providing senior assistance in recruitment across the whole of DLUHC and making an active contribution to the corporate leadership of the directorate, group, and department.

Person specification

The role both demands significant levels of enthusiasm and resilience. This will require a proactive, nuanced approach, balancing competing interests and thinking across the short-, medium-and long-terms.

You will need to be at ease with understanding and deploying evidence and data, both to make the case for interventions or programmes and to convince others that a new way of working could lead to improved outcomes and greater efficiency. You will have the intellectual and personal confidence to work closely with and –when required –to challenge experts and sector leaders, including independent advisers, academics, and local partners. You will be able to understand the technical detail, but to explain the complicated and technical to non-specialists and to identify the core questions and issues at stake.

You will need to understand and respect the policy constraints in play, operating as a collaborator and influencer who is able to thrive on handling a broad range of policy and performance oversight issues. You will work closely with various teams at the very centre of government, ensuring that they are regularly consulted -and that their needs are acted upon sensitively.

You will bring first class strategy and policy development skills to the role, twinned with the ability to navigate central government and beyond, engaging with a wide range of stakeholders.

As one of the Department’s senior leaders, you will also be a visible role model for the Civil Service leadership behaviours. These can be found in the Civil Service Leadership Statement which is available here.    

Essential Criteria

• An inspiring, confident and empowering leader, who can set strategic direction, lead effectively through ambiguity and get the best out of a diverse workforce through promoting an inclusive, high-performance culture.

• Good judgement, first class briefing skills (both verbal and written), especially in making the complicated clear and comprehensible, and the personal confidence to operate in a complex, specialised role alongside high-profile partners with a clear sense of their own aims and objectives.

• A record of working effectively with Ministers and/or comparable senior groups externally - and the judgement to handle highly sensitive and political issues confidently.

• Strategic policy thinking capability – able to understand and shape the ways that multiple policy interventions interact, the foresight to map out what the landscape ahead will look like and the ability to lead the team to success.

• A track record of successful delivery at pace and managing risks effectively across a large policy portfolio -especially when in a changing policy and/or political environments.

• Adept at building and maintaining very strong working relationships with other senior officials across Whitehall and with senior figures in local government.

• Expertise and experience in planning policy

Selection process details

How to apply

Please provide the required information and complete your application through the Be Applied website by 23:55 on Sunday 19 November 2023.

You will be asked to enter some personal details, upload your CV and to provide your responses to the role’s advertised essential criteria.​

When prompted to upload your CV, please upload a single document consisting of: ​

• a CV (including the names of 2 referees and your current remuneration) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities, achievements and your relevant qualifications. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years. ​

• a statement of suitability explaining how your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria provided in the person specification. (max. 2 pages)​

Please remember to save these two items in one document.​

Please note that only completed applications through the Be Applied route will be considered and that any further progress updates will be sent through Be Applied.

The selection panel will be made up of:

• Caroline Crowther & Charlotte Spencer, Director (jobshare), Leasehold, Land and Planning Systems​

• Two additional panel members TBC

Selection process

Candidates that are shortlisted may be invited to attend a staff engagement panel. 

At DLUHC we hold staff engagement panels as an integral part of the recruitment process for Senior Civil Servants (SCS) – they are designed to help us build up a rounded picture of each candidate and give us an insight into how you might engage and interact with your team should you be successful. The purpose of the session is to help us assess your engagement and communication skills and is not about testing your subject knowledge or expertise for this particular role. Feedback from the session is passed onto the selection panel for consideration alongside the final interview.

Candidates may also be invited to a meeting with a Minister or the Secretary of State, and/or other senior stakeholders. This is not a formal part of the selection process but an informal chance for candidates to find out more about the role and the organisation.

Shortlisted candidates will also be invited to give a short presentation or complete an exercise at the beginning of their final interview. Further details will be provided to shortlisted candidates when invited to interview. 

All of the evidence presented as part of the process will be considered in the final assessment.

Security Clearance

All DLUHC colleagues must meet the Baseline Personnel Security Standard. This is a series of basic security checks to confirm identity and employment history.

Successful candidates for roles based in our London office 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. CTC clearance will generally require you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. 

For more details of vetting levels and requirements please refer to the Cabinet Office HMG Personnel Security Controls.

Salary

For external appointments, remuneration for this role will be circa £75,000 pa plus a bonus opportunity depending on performance (within the normal Civil Service pay arrangements) and attractive pension.​

For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If appointed on promotion you would get the higher of 10% uplift or the new minimum for Deputy Director.

Future pay awards will normally be made in line with current SCS performance-related pay arrangements.