Deputy Director – Head of Buildings, Fire, and Resilience Analysis

Bristol, Darlington, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Wolverhampton

Job Summary

We are MHCLG

Responsibilities

The role will be responsible for leading a multidisciplinary analytical team of over 60 analysts including 7 direct reports, covering areas such as:

• Building remediation
• Building systems and performance
• Fire safety
• Resilience

The primary internal stakeholders are Building, Fire and Resilience Group (BFRG) and playing a full part in the professional analytical life of the Department alongside colleagues in Central Hub for Analysis, Statistics and Evaluation. External stakeholders include FRAs, LRFs, Local Authorities and the construction industry.

This role may involve regular travel to London in accordance with departmental travel policies and business requirements.

Job Description

The key responsibilities of the role are to:

• Provide strategic leadership to a large, diverse analytical team, setting direction and driving delivery.
• Shape and prioritise analytical work to inform policy and operational decisions at pace.
• Ensure robust, evidence-based insights underpin decisions on building safety, building systems and performance, fire and resilience.
• Horizon-scanning and challenging the Group to anticipate policy and delivery challenges, providing thought leadership in policy areas
• Helping to identify strategic analytical synergies and interdependencies across the Group to help delivery of its outcomes
• Build strong relationships across government and with external stakeholders to influence and deliver outcomes.
• Build a collaborative, inclusive culture that supports professional development and wellbeing.
• Champion innovation and continuous improvement in analytical approaches.

Person specification

We are seeking an outstanding leader to take on the role of Deputy Director – Head of Buildings, Fire, and Resilience Analysis. This is a pivotal position within the Buildings, Fire and Resilience Group, shaping analytical insights that inform policy and operational decisions impacting millions of lives across the country.

This an exciting opportunity to lead the Buildings, Fire and Resilience Analysis division, which provides data and analysis to support all areas of building safety, performance, fire and resilience policy and operational delivery.

This role will be overseeing all the analysis underpinning system level reform across construction products and professions in the construction sector. So it’s at the heart of government delivery priorities on house-building and remediation. As well as the breadth of resilience response and fire sector policy and delivery. The Group covers a wide range of policy and delivery areas, drawing on an equally wide range of analytical support.

Much of the Group’s agenda is dealing with relatively novel policy areas, presenting a particularly exciting opportunity as lead analyst to shape and develop evidence bases and models to support our understanding of the risks and performance in the buildings and fire sectors. It is also a important leadership role, to deliver quality and timely analytical support work in circumstances that are both challenging and stimulating, e.g. where there are incomplete and poor quality evidence sets; and decisions about policy interventions to support very high impact, very low probability events.

Essential Criteria

• Provide strategic analytical and people leadership for a large multidisciplinary analytical function, shaping and prioritising analysis, appraisal and evaluation to influence high-profile policy decisions and support delivery. Lead, develop and inspire high-performing teams, fostering an inclusive culture, strengthening capability across analytical professions, and driving innovation and continuous improvement. The successful candidate should be able to demonstrate the ability to operate at the cutting edge of innovative analytical practice, to ensure the Group benefits from the latest tools and techniques to address our evidence challenges.
• Lead complex portfolios, programmes and competing priorities, proactively setting clear priorities, maintaining grip across diverse workstreams, and delivering high-quality outcomes at pace in a fast-moving and at time ambiguous environment.
• Provide visible strategic leadership and direction across a complex policy and delivery landscape, demonstrating the ability to see the bigger picture, influence high-profile and complex policy decisions, anticipate emerging risks and opportunities, provide and provoke thought leadership, and deploy analytical expertise to maximise impact on organisational objectives and ministerial priorities. The successful candidate will need to show how they can be proactive in setting the analytical agenda for the Group and making recommendations to very senior leaders about the analytical work that will add most value.
• Communicate with clarity, authority and influence, translating complex evidence into compelling written and verbal advice for senior leaders, ministers and external stakeholders. Build strong strategic relationships, challenge constructively, and influence decision-making at the highest levels through credible, evidence-based insight. There are a large number of stakeholders linked to this role and the successful candidate must be able to evidence how they develop and maintain the highest quality professional working relationships.
• Being a badged member of one of the following Government Analytical Professions:
  • Government Statistician Group (GSG)
  • Government Economic Service (GES)
  • Government Operational Research Service (GORS)
  • Government Social Research Service (GSR)