About the job

Summary

The Strategic Road Network, (SRN) is one of the most critical pieces of national infrastructure, connecting towns and cities and people and places. It is used by us all. National Highways runs the SRN and the government is committed to investing £24bn upgrading it as part of the Roads Investment Strategy.

The RaPID team client the work undertaken by National Highways specifying the outputs to be delivered, overseeing efficient delivery, monitoring safe operations and ensuring that wider government strategic objectives including decarbonisation, levelling up, improving transport for the user and increasing our global impact are delivered through this investment.

We are seeking a fourth deputy director to become part of our leadership team. Ideally you will be a project delivery professional with experience of major infrastructure projects, have excellent communication skills, political judgement and be enthused by working as part of a team in partnership with National Highways.

If you recognise yourself in the person specification and are excited by the role, please do get in touch.

Job description

RaPID is responsible for leading the Government’s relationship with National Highways (NH), the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) and Transport Focus, developing and delivering investment in the Strategic Road Network (England’s motorways and ‘A’ roads), and overseeing its performance.

We are expanding our team to ensure we have the capacity and capability to oversee the complexity of the investment programme and to ensure that we greater focus on the interaction of the programme with the Department’s wider strategic objectives of improving transport for the user, decarbonisation and levelling up the economy. This role is one of four Deputy Directors who will work together to oversee and support National Highways’ delivery of the Second Roads Investment Strategy. We also work very closely with our sister Directorate, Roads Strategy, who lead future policy development in this area.

You will lead a team of policy and project delivery professionals working closely with colleagues in DfT, the Infrastructure Projects Authority (IPA) and in HM Treasury, with our Ministers, and with National Highways, as well as playing a role in the senior leadership of our Directorate.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities will include:

• Oversee NH’s overall delivery of the Roads Investment Strategy, ensuring good quality portfolio level reporting to Ministers, to the DfT Investment Portfolio and Delivery Committee, HM Treasury, IPA and other government bodies.

• Ensure that the Department meets its obligations to Parliament and to the public to report progress with the RIS, manage change control processes and set out clear plans for future delivery.

• Act as client for the Tier 2 (below £500m) road schemes in Highways England’s programme, providing appropriate challenge and support to HE in delivery.

• Lead relationship management with NH and wider stakeholders including ORR and Transport Focus, and oversee and advise on NH’s overall performance.

• Working closely with colleagues in Road Strategy, lead the Directorate’s response to policy developments where they interact with portfolio delivery.

• Manage our corporate team ensuring that we continue to provide timely responses to correspondence and PQ's and providing corporate and functional support (e.g. on IT and recruitment) for both RaPID and Roads Strategy Directorates.

Person Specification

It is essential in your supporting statement that you provide evidence and proven examples against each of the selection criteria below as far as you can

• You are an experienced project delivery professional familiar with infrastructure delivery, project control techniques and portfolio management.

• You have excellent communication skills, along with sound political judgement, and can deploy these to build effective relationships, manage conflicting views, and influence at the highest levels including with ministers and senior executives from our delivery partners.

• You can see the big picture and ensure that in delivering our projects we remain outcome focussed and deliver benefits that properly reflect wider Government policy.

• You will be able to develop a good network within the Department and with the relevant delivery partners e.g. local authorities and NH as well as colleagues across Whitehall.

• You will be a talented leader who can motivate and develop a diverse and inclusive team with a range of policy and project backgrounds and work across organisational boundaries.

• You will be capable of demonstrating personal resilience during periods of pressure, scrutiny and ambiguity. You’ll be committed to providing empowering support to ensure individuals and teams remain effective at all times.

We are committed to diversity and inclusion and welcome applicants from all backgrounds

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Whatever your role, we take your career and development seriously, and want to enable you to build a really successful career with the Department and wider Civil Service. It is crucial that our employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead, and you’ll benefit from regular performance and development reviews to ensure this development is ongoing. As a Civil Service employee, you’ll be entitled to a large range of benefits.

• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

The Civil Service values and supports all its employees. We have strong and pro-active staff networks, special leave policies for hospital appointments, reasonable adjustments put in place for those who need them, and diversity talent programmes to help everyone irrespective of background, to achieve their potential.

• Pension. Your pension is a valuable part of your total reward package.

A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension; where your contributions come out of your salary before any tax is taken; and where your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire. Visit Civil Service Pension Scheme for more details.

• Generous Annual Leave and Bank Holiday Allowance

25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service. This is in addition to 8 public holidays. This will be complimented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the Queen’s Birthday.

• Staff Wellbeing

• Flexible working including part-time or time-term working and access to Flexible Working Schemes allowing you to vary your working day as long as you work your total hours.

• Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers.

• Childcare benefits (policy for new employees as of 5 April 2018): The government has introduced the Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) scheme. Working parents can open an online childcare account and for every £8 they pay in, the government adds £2, up to a maximum of £2000 a year for each child or £4000 for a disabled child. Parents then use the funds to pay for registered childcare. Existing employees may be able to continue to claim childcare vouchers, so please check how the policy would work for you.

• Any move to the DfT 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

• Onsite facilities Opportunity to use onsite facilities including fitness centres and staff canteens (where applicable).

• Season Ticket and Bicycle Loan. Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle.