Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
HR Synergy Roadmap, Planning and Change Assurance Lead
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Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Leeds, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Reading, Warrington, York
Job Summary
Our HR Function plays a critical role within Defra Group. We are responsible for developing and delivering the Group People Strategy and Plan to build and sustain a high performing workforce, empowered to deliver against our organisational priorities in an inclusive, ambitious and engaging environment.
To deliver our professional and expert end-to-end HR service, Defra Group HR partners with Defra, Rural Payments Agency, Environment Agency, Animal & Plant Health Agency, Veterinary Medicines Directorate, and Natural England, as well as many other delivery partners, which includes Civil Service and public service bodies.
The HR function is structured across 3 pillars of delivery: HR Business Partnering, HR Expert Services and HR Operations. This role sits within HR Digital and Automation in the wider HR Operations space and has a specific focus on reporting, governance and delivery assurance within the wider Synergy Programme.
About The Synergy Programme
The Synergy Programme aims to transform shared services across Defra, DWP, MoJ, Home Office, and their Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs). This transformation will impact around 250,000 Public and Civil Service employees, supporting new ways of working for over half of the Civil Service.
Synergy’s Mission:
The mission is to simplify and enhance the delivery of corporate services in government with an outcome to make working lives easier. This results in crucial support which delivers crucial services through the provision of smarter, faster, and more intuitive systems designed around user needs.
Synergy’s Objectives:
- To simplify operations through an optimised Shared Services Centre
- To improve user experience
- To enhance data quality and reporting
- To deliver service continuity alongside the provision of a foundation for service enhancements
- And to demonstrate value for money
Job Description
This post reports to the G6 Synergy@Defra HR Senior Programme Manager and is one of two G7 roles within the HR Synergy delivery team. The role owns the HR Synergy delivery roadmap and planning architecture — the forward-looking view that shows where HR is heading, what the major decision points are, and how delivery is sequenced. Because Synergy is the dominant transformational programme for HR, this roadmap serves as the primary reference point that the Change Portfolio Lead and other HR programmes use when aligning their own plans to Synergy’s transformational timeline.
The post-holder will lead the development and maintenance of the HR Synergy delivery roadmap — a rolling view showing minor and major Target Operating Model inflection points, interim state transitions, readiness milestones, and go-live decision points. They will map the major decisions on the horizon, including Synergy go-live timing considerations, readiness change requirements, and interim versus end-state TOM transitions, ensuring these are visible and flagged in good time for senior decision-making.
Critically, the role also provides assurance over the Business Change Management support HR receives from the Synergy@Defra team, acting as the day-to-day HR counterpart to the BCM function at G7 peer level, monitoring the quality of change impact assessments, readiness activities, and stakeholder engagement, and identifying where support falls short.
Synergy is a major GMPP cross-government programme with a budget of approximately £300 million, delivering digital transformation across DWP, Home Office, MoJ and Defra. Within Defra group, the programme will fundamentally reshape how HR services are delivered to core Defra and seven Arms’ Length Bodies, ultimately affecting over 30,000 employees.
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Key Responsibilities:
- Lead the development and maintenance of the HR Synergy delivery roadmap, showing minor and major TOM inflection points, interim state transitions, readiness milestones, and go-live decision points.
- Map major decision points on the horizon and ensure these are visible in the roadmap and flagged for senior decision-making in good time.
- Work with workstream leads and HR Design’s team to define and confirm SME allocations per workstream area, categorising individuals against agreed FTE commitment levels.
- Plan, scope, and support delivery of key Synergy planning workshops, including SME allocation workshops and SLT planning sessions.
- Provide assurance over the BCM support HR receives from the Synergy@Defra BCM team, monitoring quality of change impact assessments, readiness activities, and stakeholder engagement.
- Provide the Synergy roadmap, forward view, and inflection point analysis to the Change Portfolio Lead for cross-programme alignment.
- Work closely with the Head of HR Design’s team to ensure the roadmap accurately reflects design outputs and that design decisions are sequenced realistically.
The post-holder will take a senior role in the delivery of Synergy for Defra HR. This will include both line management and deputising for G6/DD at regular times, as well as being a visible ‘Face of Synergy’ within Defra and across government.
Person specification
Clear, demonstrable experience of programme or project planning within a complex, multi-stakeholder environment. Experience within a major government programme is strongly preferred. (LEAD CRITERIA)
- Demonstrable experience of developing and maintaining delivery roadmaps or integrated plans, including the identification and management of dependencies, milestones, and decision points.
- Experience of working with or alongside business change management functions, with an understanding of change readiness, impact assessment, and stakeholder engagement disciplines.
- Demonstrable experience of designing and facilitating planning workshops that bring together diverse stakeholders to reach decisions on sequencing, resourcing, or phasing.
- Experience of working closely with design or subject matter teams to translate their outputs into realistic delivery plans.
- A track record of providing forward-looking planning intelligence to senior leaders, enabling informed decision-making on complex programmes.
- Knowledge and experience of different government HR processes and policies across the HR taxonomy would be advantageous but is not essential.
Knowledge and Technical Criteria
- Formal project and programme management qualifications are required. The post-holder must be qualified, or working towards qualification, in recognised government programme and project delivery or business change frameworks such as Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), PRINCE2 Practitioner, APM PMQ, PROSCI BCM, or similar.
- Strong planning and analytical skills with the ability to synthesise complex programme information, design outputs, and dependencies into a coherent, credible delivery roadmap.
- Proficiency across Microsoft 365 products, particularly PowerPoint (roadmap and planning products), Excel (SME allocation tracking), SharePoint (document management) and Teams.
- Knowledge of working with digital systems that support HR services. This can come from a Change, Project, Service Desk or Analytical background.
- Significant knowledge of the Synergy programme and of the key design principles connected to the successful automation of HR processes.
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Qualifications
- Formal project and programme management qualifications are required. The post-holder must be qualified, or working towards qualification, in recognised government programme and project delivery or business change frameworks such as Managing Successful Programmes (MSP), PRINCE2 Practitioner, APM PMQ, PROSCI BCM, or similar.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
- Changing and Improving
- Making Effective Decisions
We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:
Leadership
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Alongside your salary of £56,375, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes £16,331 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).
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Learning and development tailored to your role
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An environment with flexible working options
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A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
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A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
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.
Application Process
As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV, a Personal Statement (no more than 750 words) and a 250-word Behaviour statement (Leadership). Please provide evidence of all points of the Experience Criteria and the Knowledge and Technical Criteria in both your CV and your 750 word Personal Statement.
Further details around what this will entail are detailed on the application form.
Sift
Should there be a large number of successful applications, there will be an initial sift assessing the Personal Statement. Those who pass the initial sift will either be progressed to a full sift or straight to interview.
Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.
Interview
If successful at application stage, you will be invited to interview where you will be assessed on Behaviours and Experience.
If selected to attend an interview you will be required to make a short, informal presentation to the panel. Those invited to interview will be provided with further information as part of the interview invitation process.
Your interview will be conducted virtually via MS Teams.
Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.
Further Information
Location
As part of the pre-employment process for this post, successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. The agreed contractual workplace is then the substantive and permanent place of work for the successful candidate(s).
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