HM Revenue & Customs
Deputy Director Strategy Governance & Transformation

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Bristol, Croydon, Leeds, Manchester, Stratford
Job Summary
Lead the strategy for Legal Group, connecting to HMRC’s purpose and strategy. Oversee the design and delivery of Legal Group’s transformation, including Digital transformation and an ambitious AI programme across Legal Group’s functions to deliver increased productivity, drawing on an annual investment budget of c£3m. The role also involves overseeing Legal Group’s governance, finance and risk functions, with responsibility for Legal Group’s £160m budget, and having overall accountability for strategic and planning functions within Legal Group.
The post holder will be a key member of the RCS senior leadership team, the Legal Group senior leadership group, HMRC’s senior leaders group, and will be expected to make a corporate leadership contribution.
The post holder will sit on key strategy, design and transformation governance boards more widely within HMRC supporting and influencing change across the enterprise, under the new HMRC transformation governance structure. The post holder will also attend Legal Group SLT meetings and a key aspect of the role is to work closely with the Legal Group Director General as well as Directors.
Job Description
- Work collaboratively across Legal Group teams and the Legal Group senior leaders group to lead the implementation of the Legal Group Strategy Roadmap.
- Develop the next phase of Legal Group’s strategy, setting direction for 1900 people and planning for the Spending Review 2027.
- Develop and deliver Legal Group’s ambitious transformation agenda, particularly digital and AI, and ensure alignment with HMRC’s wider Transformation Programme.
- Oversee the project delivery profession in Legal Group, ensuring change is delivered in accordance with best practice from the Association of Project Management.
- Lead and assure the delivery of efficiencies across the change portfolio, ensuring Legal Group is able to evidence increased productivity.
- Lead and oversee a robust approach to risk and assurance across Legal Group, maintaining high standards and ensuring the Group continues to meet all of HMRC’s standards.
- Work across HMRC to influence design and development of programmes appropriately, e.g. Enterprise Customer Relationship Management and Making Tax Digital, to leverage investment to support change in Legal Group, ensure legal and litigation requirements are considered from an end-to-end perspective and the business implications for Legal Group’s operational delivery business are understood and factored in.
- Ensure Legal Group’s transformation programme, finance, benefits profile and business area plans align with Legal Group and HMRC strategies and support Legal Group to implement them.
- Lead Legal Group’s Digital Transformation, including maximising the benefits of AI and Legal Group’s Case Management System (CMS), across Legal Group’s functions. Support the digital team to overcome delivery obstacles and deliver the programme on time and within budget.
- Support the Legal Group Director General and SLT members in identifying, assessing and making key strategic decisions.
- Assess the extent to which Legal Group is delivering its strategies and advise on relative business prioritisation and corrective action.
- Evaluate the performance of the strategies against their objectives, and refresh them as necessary.
- Ensure appropriate governance and reporting processes are in place for the programme and business planning within Legal Group and to support Legal Group SLT to facilitate their decision making.
- Build influential relationships with finance colleagues, HMT, HMCTS and MoJ to secure investment from SR27 and drive forward integration of digital systems to deliver efficiency savings and bring significant improvements to the customer experience of litigation.
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Person specification
- Highly articulate and credible, with the personal impact to influence and challenge effectively at the most senior levels, consistently delivering, inspiring and engaging with meaningful messages about the future direction.
- A proven track record of setting direction and driving transformation in complex organisations from the formulation of strategy through to delivery within an environment of constrained resources and ability to overcome resistance to change.
- An aptitude for striking a balance between strategic innovation and operational delivery, demonstrating good judgement and pragmatism.
- A demonstrable commitment to the principle of continuous improvement and development for building a performance culture.
- A track record of strong leadership leading high performing teams, an empowering style and evidence of active corporate leadership.
- Ability to think and act strategically and to develop practical, creative and innovative solutions, business models and approaches to drive these forward.
Salary and Benefits
Alongside your salary of £86,000, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £24,914 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
For full benefits please see attached Candidate Pack
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
For full Application Process please see attached Candidate Pack
All Criminal Record Checks applications are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.
As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.


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Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window). See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window).
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.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job Contact
- Name : Robert Gavin
- Email : scs.resourcing@hmrc.gov.uk
Recruitment team
Further information
Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. You have the right to complain if you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles. In the first instance, you should raise the matter directly with the department concerned. If you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/
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