Head of Long Term Strategy

Person Specification

Essential Criteria for the role which will be used to assess your application, alongside Success Profiles:

• Experience in economic policy or labour market policy (lead criteria)
• Experience in labour market policy or economic policy or strategy areas related to the job role
• Excellent policy and strategy skills, including experience of working in a strategy environment, with a good understanding of how to work with other professions and wider government to develop policy and strategy, taking account of priorities across the Department and Government
• A track record of strong leadership and management with the ability to motivate and encourage your team and provide visible leadership across the organisation.
• High level of personal effectiveness with ability to deliver at pace and in a complex environment.
• Strong communicating and influencing skills, demonstrating an ability to build strong relationships and effective networks of stakeholders to deliver results

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace

Salary and Benefits

Alongside your salary of £57,946, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £16,786 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.

DWP have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Generous annual leave – at least 23 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
• Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
• Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
• Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
• Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

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

This vacancy is using Success Profiles opens in a new window, and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

Sift

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a 750 word Personal Statement.

Your Personal Statement needs to set out evidence of how your experience meets all the experience criteria set out in the advert and not the published behaviours. Your statement must not exceed 750 words, and you are advised to take advantage of the full word count.

We are not looking at how much time you have spent in a job, but rather how you have performed. Your Personal Statement must show demonstrable evidence of what you did, how you did it, and what outcome was achieved. This should include the impact of your approach and evidence of your ability to take forward different approaches in different circumstances.

The standards detailed in the experience criteria are the minimum expectations for the role and only candidates with the strongest evidence will be invited to interview. In the event of a large number of applications, meeting the pass standard for the lead criteria 'Experience in economic policy or labour market policy' will determine if the other criteria are scored. Candidates will have to meet the standard for all criteria to progress to interview.

Interview Stage

If you are successful at the sift you will be invited to an interview. The interview will comprise behaviour-based questions. The guidance on Success Profiles explains these selection tools. Interviews will be conducted via MS Teams and will include questions based on the behaviours listed below:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace

Behaviour questions will be provided to successful candidates in advance of their interview.

We aim to conduct the sift after the advert closes, followed by interviews in late September.

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

We welcome applications from a wide range of experiences and backgrounds, including those with disabilities. Disabled candidates who have applied under the Disability Confident Scheme will be progressed to the interview if they have met the minimum requirements at the sift stage. If we receive a large number of applicants the benchmarks for all applicants will be adjusted, including those being considered under the Disability Confident Scheme.

When applying for these roles, you will be required to state in preference order which of the Hub locations you can work from. Please be aware these roles can only be carried out in the UK, not overseas, and your office base must be one of the following hubs :

• Quarry House, Leeds, LS2 7UA
• Caxton House, 1-11 Tothill St, London, SW1H 9NA
• King’s Court, Hanover Way, Sheffield, S3 7UF

Important Location Information:

Caxton