About the job

Summary

•At DLUHC we value diversity and inclusion. We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and identities. We are pro-actively working to improve our diversity and therefore we are especially keen to encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates. We promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation.

•The Resilience and Recovery Directorate (RED) within DLUHC supports communities across England to be prepared for all types of emergencies and supports them in both response and recovery.

•This is achieved by working with Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) to support them in developing and testing their plans and preparedness, and by providing support on behalf of government during and after emergencies to enable an effective response and recovery.

This Chief of Staff will support the Director of Resilience and Recovery as part of a wider Corporate Hub team. This is a highly rewarding role, in a unique area of DLUHC, focused on a broad range of operational, policy and analytical issues that are crucial in building local and national resilience for future crises and emergencies.

The post holder will act as a fulcrum between the Director and wider-Directorate, ensuring that both are supporting one another, and all are working towards the priorities of the day. Working across a broad range of risk and policy issues, including the development of the new Resilience Strategy, strategic planning for future risks identified in the National Security Risk Assessment and major events such as the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, and enhancing our situational awareness capability, the role ensures the effective operation of a busy directorate, and that the policy priorities for the Unit, and the Director specifically, are well understood by a range of key interlocutors.

You will be expected to work independently, creatively, and effectively across the Unit and elsewhere across the DLUHC, including the private offices of the Director General, the Permanent Secretary, and Ministers, as well as key Whitehall departments – especially the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in Cabinet Office. A key part of your role will be to develop effective relationships quickly across-Government. You will work closely with the Unit’s Senior Leadership and Management Teams on behalf of the Director, to provide leadership for RED and support the Directorate’s operational and strategic leadership agenda. The role includes management of two personal assistants who support the wider RED Senior Leadership Team.

Job description

The Chief of Staff will perform an exciting role that sits at the heart of the Resilience and Recovery Directorate (RED), providing a crucial interface between operational and policy staff, and the Director.

Supporting your Principal:

. Understand the Director’s priorities, communicating these to teams and stakeholders across the Department and Whitehall to deliver these priorities;

. Assist the Director in building and maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders across government and agencies, recording and communicating key actions, cascading time-critical information, and joining up cross-cutting areas of work;

. Commission and quality assure briefing materials for the Director, often advising them on the best course of action;

. Arrange key strategic meetings, pre-briefings and overseeing the physical preparation for meetings;

. Build and utilise a network amongst the Private Offices of senior leaders across Whitehall, and the wider resilience community. This will include facilitating effective cross- government policy coordination as well as resolving tensions;

. Develop a clear understanding of the Director’s broad portfolio to strengthen local communities by providing a valuable link between central and local tiers so they are prepared and resilient in order to effectively respond to and recover from incidents and emergencies.

. Support the Director in their leadership of the department’s response to a major emergency or national event (eg widescale flooding) as needed should an incident occur.

Policy and Unit-wide Support:

. Work with individual teams to develop priorities in line with the Director’s, ensuring that actions assigned to RED are fulfilled and teams are utilising all opportunities for upcoming meetings, while also cascading any key outcomes;

• Maintain a forward look of events, activities and milestones to provide a single view across the Directorate;

. Take part in priority policy projects (including incidents) to support the wider directorate and to drive work forward at pace;

. Attend policy meetings to ensure that the Director remains up-to-date on key developments and provide steers on behalf of them if required;

? Act as a flexible member of the wider Corporate Hub management team, supporting the Corporate Hub’s agenda to ensure effective governance, workforce planning, efficient use of resources and digital enhancements to our ways of working.

Out of hours working:

Please note that this role includes a requirement for the post holder to provide on-call duty officer cover for RED; this includes working after 8pm and at weekends on occasions. In addition, though not an ongoing requirement, during a major emergency and in specific responses you will be required to support our operational response team. Candidates should reflect on whether they will be able to work unsociable hours and provide shift cover before applying. Any additional hours worked and duty cover will be remunerated in line with DLUHC Pay Policy.

Responsibilities

This role would suit a confident, assertive and resilient individual, ideally with experience in a fast paced policy development and delivery environment.

You will be adept at working with, and influencing, a diverse range of stakeholders; an excellent communicator with strong briefing skills; and skilled at proactively making connections and seeing the bigger picture both within the Directorate and beyond. You will have a proven track record of delivering in challenging circumstances. You will need to display political sensitivity and confidence in dealing with Private Offices and senior officials.

Due to the close engagement that will be required with private office, and the potential need to physically attend certain meetings in Whitehall, this is a London based role that will require a level of office working in the Department’s headquarters in 2 Marsham Street.

Experience of working in central government is preferred, but not essential.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role

•An environment with flexible working options

• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

• A Civil Service pension

Things you need to know

Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check.

See our vetting charter.

People working with government assets must complete basic personnel security standard checks.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours and Ability.

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 and bring on 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:

Behaviours -

Delivery at Pace (lead behaviour)

Communicating and Influencing

Leadership

Seeing the Big Picture

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 based on the lead behaviour.

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of behaviour and ability questions as listed in the advert. The selection process will include an exercise immediately before the interview to test your briefing and communication skills.

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

Behaviours: Delivering at Pace, Leadership, Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing

Ability: 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

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

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 from 13/01/22 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@communities.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

Grade 7 salary

The salary for this role is £53,132 (London).

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

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 and guidance on:

• Internal Fraud Database

• Reserve List

• Notes on Security Clearance

• Additional Information on Modernised Terms and Pay

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

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)
• 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

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code 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.

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.