HM Revenue & Customs
Director of Resilience
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About The Job
Job summary
Reporting to the Director General, CDIO, the Director of Resilience provides enterprise leadership across HMRC, ensuring that resilience, business continuity, contingency planning and crisis management are embedded within governance, operations and decision-making across the department. Working closely with the Chief Security Officer, the role forms part of HMRC's wider Security and Resilience leadership arrangements.
The Director will lead the Resilience Directorate, responsible for enterprise resilience, business continuity, crisis management and organisational preparedness across HMRC.
Job Description
Strategic Leadership & Accountability
- Lead and Mature the Operating Model: Provide strategic leadership for business continuity, crisis management and resilience arrangements, ensuring governance and accountability remain effective.
- Strengthen Organisational Capability: Develop the processes, tools, systems and professional expertise needed to support preparedness and response.
- Drive Continuous Improvement: Use insight, threat intelligence and lessons learned to strengthen resilience capability and address emerging risks.
- Promote a Culture of Resilience: Lead engagement and awareness activity to ensure resilience ownership and accountability is embedded across HMRC.
- Provide Assurance of Maturity: Oversee internal and external assurance activity, including alignment with ISO 22301 and other recognised standards.
- Crisis Management Leadership: Provide strategic leadership during crisis situations, ensuring effective activation of business continuity, recovery and response arrangements.
- Command Arrangements: Maintain, develop and oversee Gold, Silver and Bronze command structures, ensuring clear responsibilities, escalation pathways and effective mobilisation of resources.
- Integrated Resilience Framework: Lead the continued development and embedding of contingency planning, business continuity, disaster recovery and crisis response arrangements.
- Scenario Planning and Testing: Oversee resilience exercises, playbooks and assurance activity to strengthen organisational readiness and response capability.
- Business Continuity Assurance: Ensure critical business services are supported by effective and regularly tested continuity arrangements.
- Strategic Leadership: Provide expert advice and assurance to Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, ExCom and the HMRC Board on resilience risks, preparedness and organisational capability.
Strategic Influence and Collaboration
- The Director of Resilience operates at the strategic centre of HMRC's resilience capability, providing expert advice and assurance to senior leaders and governance forums.
- Internal Influence: Work with Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, ExCom, the HMRC Board and senior leaders across lines of business to embed resilience within strategic planning, operational delivery and enterprise risk management.
- External Collaboration: Represent HMRC in cross-government resilience and crisis management forums, building trusted relationships with government departments, agencies, suppliers and delivery partners and contributing to wider resilience capability across government.
- Communication and Impact: Translate complex resilience issues into clear, credible advice that supports effective decision-making before, during and after disruption.
Person specification
Qualifications
The successful applicant will need to demonstrate the right senior-level experience, relevant qualifications and effective delivery against the following essential criteria:
- Strategic Leadership and Delivery: Proven ability to lead complex organisations through change and deliver sustainable outcomes across organisational boundaries.
- Resilience, Crisis, Contingency and Continuity Leadership: Experience of leading resilience, crisis management, business continuity or recovery arrangements in a complex operational environment.
- Building Organisational Capability: Experience of strengthening organisational capability through planning, preparedness, assurance, continuous improvement and organisational learning.
- Stakeholder Engagement and Influence: Exceptional communication and influencing skills, with the ability to build credibility and secure commitment from Ministers, boards, senior leaders, operational teams and external partners.
- Government and External Collaboration: Experience of building effective partnerships across government, industry and external organisations to deliver strategic outcomes.
- Qualifications, Frameworks and Assurance: Relevant professional qualifications, or equivalent expertise, and knowledge of recognised resilience, continuity, risk management or assurance frameworks.
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Benefits
Alongside your salary of £105,000, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £30,418 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).
Pension
Your Civil Service pension is a valuable part of your total reward and is one of your biggest benefits.
When you join the Civil Service, you get access to the alpha pension with a generous employer contribution of 28.97% and some of the lowest member contributions in the public sector.
Please visit Civil Service Pension Scheme for more information.
Annual Leave and Bank Holiday Allowance
25 days annual leave, increasing to 30 days after 5 years' service (allowance pro-rata for part-time colleagues).
This is complemented by one day's paid privilege leave to mark the King's Birthday and is in addition to your public holidays.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
The Civil Service values and supports all its employees. At HMRC we want to create great places to work that are welcoming to all - where there is a strong sense of belonging and community.
We embed inclusion in everything we do. Senior Civil Servants play a crucial role in promoting and maintaining inclusive behaviours, addressing disparities and reporting progress.
Our HMRC equality objectives 2024-2028 describe how we are working to become a more inclusive and representative organisation reflective of our values.
Things you need to know
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
Selection Panel
- Tony Poulter, Civil Service Commissioner & Chair
- Daljit Rehal, HMRC Director General CDIO / vacancy holder
- Helen Pickles, HMRC Chief People Officer & Director General, People and Place Group
- Myrtle Lloyd, Director General, Customer Services Group, HMRC
Shortlist
The panel will assess the evidence provided in your CV and statement. Candidates whose applications best meet the essential criteria will be selected for interview.
HMRC is a Disability Confident leader and guarantees to interview candidates applying under the Disability Confident Scheme who successfully meet the minimum selection criteria outlined in the person specification.
Due Diligence
Candidates should declare any perceived conflicts of interest at application, and this may be discussed with you at interview.
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Informal Conversation
Shortlisted candidates will have the opportunity to speak to the vacancy holder or nominated senior leader. This is an informal discussion to allow you to learn more about the role and is not part of the assessment process.
Assessment
If shortlisted, you will take part in the following assessments:
- Individual Leadership Assessment - a combination of psychometric assessments.
- Staff Engagement Exercise - a presentation and Q&A with a representative staff group from across HMRC.
Assessments are designed to support the panel's decision-making and highlight areas for further exploration at interview. They do not result in a pass or fail decision.
Interview
You will attend a panel interview for a more in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence. This will include a 5-minute verbal presentation; further information will be issued in advance.
Interviews are expected to take place in person in London.
Offer and Feedback
Unfortunately, due to the anticipated number of applicants for this role, we are unable to provide feedback to those not successful at shortlist stage.
Candidates who are shortlisted and attend an interview will be offered feedback from a member of the interview panel. We will also send you a copy of the report for any assessment you have undergone.
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.
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 security 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
Open to UK nationals only.
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
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