Job description

Personal Tax, Welfare and Pensions

We work to create a tax and welfare system which supports the government’s goals of deficit reduction, economic growth and fairness. In doing so, we look after high profile areas including personal taxes, labour markets, welfare, tax administration, pensions, and savings. We also coordinate spending controls for both HM Revenue & Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions. The Group also has a wider role to assess the overall impact of changes made to taxes and benefit on households across the UK.

Our work means that we are often at the centre of ministers’ decision making, and we play an important part in the Budget and the Spending Review. Our group works closely with colleagues at HMRC, DWP and the Prime Minister’s office, and with a wide variety of external stakeholders

The Group Management Services (GMS) team in PTWP is a friendly, flexible and collaborative team, supporting the wider group. We provide personal assistance and business support to the Group Management Team (GMT; the senior civil servants who collectively run the teams in the PTWP group) and provide a range of administrative support and business planning services to the wider group.

This is a central role in a fast-paced part of the Treasury. We are looking for a highly organised and proactive individual to effectively lead and line manage the GMS team and provide support to the PTWP GMT.

This is an excellent opportunity to learn about a department at the centre of government policy-making, and to be at the forefront of decision-making in the Group. The post holder’s key objective will be to support the Directors and management team in making the Group more effective and a better place to work. This is especially important as the group welcomes more staff from Darlington, and where hybrid and multi-site working takes on more importance.

Key accountabilities are:

1. Provide management, leadership and support to five members of the GMS. Support the team to take initiative and ownership – supervising performance and providing feedback to aid their development. Tailor your style and approach flexibly and sensitively to lead and motivate a diverse group and get the best out of very different people. Ensure a quality service is consistently provided.

2. Support the Directors and the group’s leadership team in the operational management of the group, setting out their vision and delivering their objectives. Provide an effective secretariat function for all GMT meetings by setting forward-looking agendas to ensure timely engagement with issues, including the HMT-wide corporate and management agenda (e.g. business planning, performance/talent management), writing timely readouts, and recording (and then taking forward) any actions.

3. Act as the bridge between the PTWP GMT and the rest of the group, acting as an ambassador and representative of the GMT at all times, handling the information flow to GMT on departmental and corporate priorities in a timely manner, providing well-informed advice on decisions.

4. Design and deliver effective internal communications across PTWP, ensuring everyone is aware of the group’s ethos, vision and priorities and GMT’s messages are delivered effectively. This includes ensuring that new starters into the group are welcomed and inducted in a friendly and timely way, and are made aware of key corporate and practical information via an induction pack.

5. Be the main point of contact between PTWP and the Treasury’s “Corporate Centre”, ensuring PTWP is following the wider corporate requirements (e.g. quarterly performance update, group finance, HR issues) and communicating urgent/important information to the group.

6. Be active in wider Treasury groups and networks, particularly the GMS Manager and Correspondence networks. Give your experience in a positive and constructive way to the development of new Treasury systems and processes.

Responsibilities

We would welcome applications from a range of candidates, regardless of prior background or experience.

Required Behaviours, Experience and Technical Skills

The below criteria will be assessed in your application form:

1. Ability to effectively manage a full workload via effective planning and prioritisation. Ability to delegate effectively while monitoring progress and reassessing workloads and priorities to handle conflicting demands. (behaviour-based criteria – delivering at pace)

2. Ability to apply good judgement, common sense and discretion in making decisions and solving problems on behalf of senior colleagues (behaviour-based criteria – making effective decisions)

3. Ability to communicate in a straightforward, honest and engaging manner, choosing appropriate styles and different communication methods to maximise understanding and impact. (behaviour-based criteria – communicating and influencing)

The lead criteria is: 1 – Delivering at pace

If we receive a large number of applications, applications will be assessed against this criteria alone first. They will then be assessed against the other criteria if they have met the minimum score on the lead criteria.

Candidate Guidance on Completing your Application Form

Candidates will be asked to write a 250-word statement per behaviour. The application form will indicate which behaviour is being assessed each time you provide a statement, and we are ideally looking for an example using the below STAR method to demonstrate this behaviour in line with the full criteria stated.

All elements of the success profiles will be linked to a defined criterion that demonstrates the behaviour or experience. It is beneficial to ensure your answer focuses on the full criteria, and not just the related success profile, to give you the best chance or providing the evidence the panel wants to assess

In your statements, it is best to focus on one example in each section to allow you to provide enough detail in your answer and use all the words you have been allocated. Examples from a range of roles across your application will demonstrate that you have the skills, experience and behaviours we are looking for. We would also advise you to use examples that best meet the criteria, even if it is a few years old

How to Structure your Answer

Please use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach when writing your application answers.

• Situation – Describe the situation you found yourself in and what happened.

• Task – The Hiring Manager will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation that you found yourself in.

• Action – What actions did you take and how did you do it. Make sure to use “I”, not “we” to explain how your actions lead to a result.

• Result – Use facts and statistics to demonstrate the results that your actions produced. Explain whether it was a successful outcome, and if not, what you learned from the experience.

NOTES TO CANDIDATES

• Please refer to the candidate FAQ document which is a link on the job advert – this will provide you with guidance on completing the application form. Please contact hrrecruitment@hmtreasury.gov.uk if you have any issue accessing this document.

• At HM Treasury, to maximise diversity and inclusion within our workforce, we operate a fair, open and anonymous recruitment process. This means that the sift panel will only be able to assess you on the written evidence supplied in your application answers. They will not have access to personal information.

• You will be asked to provide some CV details during your application; however these will NOT be assessed during the process, but will be used to support discussions at interview – please ensure you put all information you would like to be scored against in your behaviour statements.

• You will be assessed on your skills, experience and behaviours through the online application form. When completing your application form, please outline how you meet the requirements as detailed in the ‘candidate assessment of skills and experience ‘section of this job description. This will give you the best chance to provide the evidence that the panel wants to assess. More guidance can be found here – completing you application.

• If we receive a large number of applications, applications will be assessed initially against the lead criterion alone. You will then be assessed against the other criteria if you have met the minimum score on the first criterion.

• Find out more about how the Civil Service assesses candidates and uses Success Profiles (opens in a new window) to test skills, experience and behaviours in applications and interviews.

• Applications are not reviewed until the closing date has passed. You will be notified of the outcome of your application as soon as the recruitment panel has reviewed all the applications.

At the interview stage, applicants for this post will be assessed against the same criteria as detailed in the candidate assessment of skills and experience section of this job description – however the panel will ask you about different aspects of these at the interview.

The interview panel may, where appropriate, add additional behaviour-based criteria at interview. Where this is done, this will always be advertised to you before you apply, details of the behaviours being assessed at interview are below.

Strength based interview questions

The interview panel will ask you questions about what you enjoy doing and what you do well and often to assess your strengths. When looking at your strengths, we want to find out whether you and the organisation and job are a good fit.

More details regarding assessment at interview can be provided upon request at any time during the application or interview process.

Recruitment Timeline:

Closing 10th April 2022

Sifting 11th April 2022

Interviews W/C 18th April 2022

Behaviours

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

Delivering at Pace

Making Effective Decisions

Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements:

HM Treasury views flexible working as essential in enabling us to recruit and retain talented people, ensuring that they are able to enjoy a long-lasting career with us. All employees have the right to apply for flexible working and there are a range of options available including; working from home, compressed hours and job sharing. Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month, providing you work enough hours to meet business need.

We also offer a generous maternity/ paternity and adoption leave package.

At HM Treasury we have an incredibly broad remit; our work touches every citizen of the country. So, it’s important our employees come from the widest possible range of backgrounds, bringing us the widest possible range of perspectives and ways of thinking. We are committed to ensuring that all staff are able to realise their potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.

Benefits:

• 25 days’ annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the Queen’s birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant)

• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours)

• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and average employer contributions of 27%

• Onsite restaurant and coffee bar. The London office also offers a gym, showers and prayer room

• Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme, season ticket advances and payroll giving

• Access to a retail discounts and cashback site

• A Rental Deposit Advance Scheme to help meet the total costs of deposits for privately rented homes

• A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity (e.g. women in the Treasury, ethnic minority network, LGBT* network, faith and belief network)