Head of Planning, Reporting and Governance

Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sheffield

Job Summary

DWP is looking to fill one role within the Strategic Reward Team, People and Capability Directorate.

As the Head of Planning, Reporting and Governance, your role encompasses but not limited to lead the development and provide strategic oversight to the Reward Strategy project, ensuring continuous innovation and improvement. Establish and maintain qualitative reporting tools, including a Strategic Reward Dashboard, to deliver key metrics for senior leaders and track progress against priorities.

In this role you will provide robust challenge and act as a critical friend to ensure effective delivery of plans, risks, and reporting. Capture decisions and dependencies for robust governance and present a holistic view of team activity. Maintain the forward look of governance activity, ensuring planning, templates, and secretariats are engaged. Direct and support daily stand-ups to ensure actions are owned, progressed, and unblocked. Build trusted relationships for effective engagement. Facilitate meetings with the Pay team to drive connectivity and maintain a joint plan with tracked milestones.

Job Description

• Lead the development of and provide ongoing strategic insight and wider oversight to the Reward Strategy project product set in support of its activity across DWP and wider as needed while also ensuring innovation and improvement is at the heart of continuous improvement.
• Establish and maintain qualitative reporting tools, including a Strategic Reward Dashboard to deliver clear key metrics for senior leaders and progress against Departmental and Director led Priorities.
• Provide robust challenge and act as critical friend to all strands of Reward Strategy activity to ensure effective delivery of plans, risks, and reporting, capturing decisions and dependencies enabling robust governance of our work, presenting the holistic view and forward look on Reward Strategy team activity. Using the planning activity maintain the forward look of governance activity across the team ensuring planned in, templates completed, and secretariats engaged.
• Provide direction and support for daily stand ups across the team to ensure actions are owned, progressed, and unblocked in a timely fashion, building credible trusted relationships to get the most of this engagement.
• Facilitate checkpoint meetings across this team and our partners in the Pay team to help drive increased connectivity across our work, including developing and maintaining a joint plan with critical milestones captured and tracked.
• Act as risk lead for the team, engaging with risk experts and other stakeholders as needed to ensure escalation / mitigation activity is taking place.
• Work with our comms and engagement lead to ensure messaging and stakeholder management is consistent.
• Own the workforce planning activity for the Strategic Reward team.
• Ensure Information management across the team is upheld in line with Departmental Policies - ensuring the relevant record keeping is undertaken (registered files and internal audit trails), DPIA is held and updated accordingly.
• Managing through the team the secretariat activity for the expected Steering Group structure that will be put in place.
• As a member of People & Capability, actively participate in the leadership and management of our function.
• Lead the development of and provide ongoing strategic insight and wider oversight to the Reward Strategy project product set in support of its activity across DWP and wider as needed while also ensuring innovation and improvement is at the heart of continuous improvement.
• Establish and maintain qualitative reporting tools, including a Strategic Reward Dashboard to deliver clear key metrics for senior leaders and progress against Departmental and Director led Priorities.
• Provide robust challenge and act as critical friend to all strands of Reward Strategy activity to ensure effective delivery of plans, risks, and reporting, capturing decisions and dependencies enabling robust governance of our work, presenting the holistic view and forward look on Reward Strategy team activity. Using the planning activity maintain the forward look of governance activity across the team ensuring planned in, templates completed, and secretariats engaged.
• Provide direction and support for daily stand ups across the team to ensure actions are owned, progressed, and unblocked in a timely fashion, building credible trusted relationships to get the most of this engagement.
• Facilitate checkpoint meetings across this team and our partners in the Pay team to help drive increased connectivity across our work, including developing and maintaining a joint plan with critical milestones captured and tracked.
• Act as risk lead for the team, engaging with risk experts and other stakeholders as needed to ensure escalation / mitigation activity is taking place.
• Work with our comms and engagement lead to ensure messaging and stakeholder management is consistent.
• Own the workforce planning activity for the Strategic Reward team.
• Ensure Information management across the team is upheld in line with Departmental Policies - ensuring the relevant record keeping is undertaken (registered files and internal audit trails), DPIA is held and updated accordingly.
• Managing through the team the secretariat activity for the expected Steering Group structure that will be put in place.
• As a member of People & Capability, actively participate in the leadership and management of our function.
  
  

Person specification

• Proven experience of managing HR projects, developing and maintaining robust plans, risks and action / decision logs, and timely reporting. (LEAD CRITERIA).
• An understanding of HR activities, specifically ideally in the reward space, to enable critical friend activity.
• Proven experience in managing HR change and engaging senior stakeholders with that change.
• Strong evidence of the ability to engage colleagues with planning and reporting methodologies and influencing across a range of stakeholders.
• Track record of delivering to challenging timescales and working through ambiguity.
• Ability to build strong, credible, and trusted relationships quickly.
  
  

Behaviours

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

• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together
• Seeing the Big Picture
  
  

Alongside your salary of £55,557, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £16,094 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

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.
  
  

Selection process details

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

Written Sift

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process outlined below:

A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. The CV is an on-line tool accessed through the Civil Service Jobsite and there is no requirement to upload your personal CV. Our CV element is short, and allows an initial check of eligibility but is not scored so please put the main content of your evidence and skills in your Personal Statement.

A personal statement (maximum 1,000 words), explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities, and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role against the key criteria in the person specification, with particular reference to the essential criteria. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

If we receive a large number of applications, we will conduct an initial sift on the lead criteria:

"Proven experience of managing HR projects, developing and maintain robust plans, risks and action / decision logs, and timely reporting." (Lead Criteria)

If you pass the initial sift, you may be progressed to a full sift or directly to interview.

Interview

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to attend an interview lasting up to 80 minutes. This will take place face to face in Leeds, Quarry House. The interview panel will be a minimum of three people. The interview will assess Behaviours and Experience. The interview aims to be more of a conversation exploring the candidate’s capability for the role.

During the first 5 minutes of your interview, you will be asked to deliver a presentation. Please note that visual aids will not be permitted.

To help you prepare and settle into the interview you will be sent the behaviour questions and presentation topic 5 days prior to your interview. These questions should be treated as confidential. The interview panel may ask you other questions which will not be shared in advance, including follow-up probing questions.

If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards.

We recognise that AI may be helpful when applying for this role, but it is important to use it in the right way. Read the DWP AI Candidate Guide to understand how you can make the best use of GenAI while ensuring your application remains authentic and effective.

Further Information

Find out more about Working for DWP

A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made.

Any move to DWP from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing [email protected] stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Before applying for this vacancy, current employees of DWP should check whether a successful application would result in changes to their terms & conditions of employment, e.g. mobility, pay, allowances. Civil Servants that would transfer into DWP from other government organisations, following successful application, will assume DWP's terms & conditions of employment current on the day they are posted, unless DWP has stated otherwise in writing.

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

Reasonable Adjustment

At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

Contact Government Recruitment Service via [email protected] as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

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.

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.

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

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 : Jenny Brydon
• Email : [email protected]
  
  

Recruitment team

• Email : [email protected]
  
  

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact DWP by email: [email protected].

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission. Click here to visit the Civil Service Commission.