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About the job
Job summary
This exciting role will lead the work of the Cabinet Office in defining, enabling and delivering HMG’s next generation of Working at SECRET capabilities, building on but not being constrained by today’s foundational services. This is a leadership role with real strategic import as we seek to protect UK information assets and capabilities from capable hostile actors and enhance UK prosperity by enabling the UK cyber industry to blossom.
The ideal candidate will have presence, drive, empathy and determination. They will lead a small team within GSG to develop and deliver the required HMG-wide Future SECRET Working Strategy. You will collaborate extensively with colleagues elsewhere within Cabinet Office and across defence, national security, civil government and law enforcement in particular on comprehensive capture of requirements, constraints and opportunities to inform strategy formulation and delivery. Indeed, critical to success will be the post holder’s ability to create close working relationships across departments and the wider stakeholder network to ensure our overall approach to future working at SECRET accurately reflects the need and is consistently agreed and adopted.
You will enjoy significant responsibility, broad visibility and the opportunity for accelerated professional development. There will be a requirement to travel between HMG and other sites in the UK when undertaking this role.
Job description
- Leading future working at SECRET work across GSG, working closely with counterparts throughout the Directorate (to include Policy, Cyber, Strategy and Assurance) to ensure our overall approach to SECRET working is well-informed and coherent.
- Formulating an HMG-wide Future SECRET Working Strategy.
- Directing a G7 engagement lead in identifying, analysing and securing agreement across departments on what is needed in this space, how to deliver and fund it.
- Leading and overseeing engagement with departments and organisations to ensure alignment of proposed solutions, standards and policies, and adoption of a coherent approach for future working at SECRET.
- Collaborating with technologists in NCSC, CDDO and industry to identify technological solutions to the user requirements.
- Producing a Cabinet Office Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) bid to fund enabling capability delivery.
- Collaborating with other bidding departments to ensure that bid is part of a set of coordinated CSR bids across all relevant departments.
- Creating, gaining agreement to and delivering a plan for the implementation of the new strategy.
- Ensuring effective communications are produced to inform all stakeholder communities, including ministers and senior officials, and delivering supporting briefings as required.
- Holding the line across departmental stakeholders to ensure their full support for, and collaboration in, this common enterprise.
- Maintaining a governance regime, ensuring blockers are identified, seniors are well sighted and issues are escalated to ensure prompt delivery.
- Drafting submissions and making recommendations to senior stakeholders, including within GSG, the wider Cabinet Office, senior boards (such as the Civil Service Board (CSB) and Government Security Steering Group (GSSG)).
- Owning engagement with commercial, legal and finance functions and HMT.
- Sourcing additional resources as needed to support work streams.
- Line management of one G7, developing and motivating staff to ensure everyone achieves their potential.
Person specification
- Highly motivated self-starter and strong team player. Flexible.
- Inclusive, collaborative, inquisitive, willing to challenge and be challenged.
- Diplomatic, with strong people and engagement skills, able to inspire and influence. Must be able to influence at senior levels. Comfortable representing the SCS1 and SCS2 when required. Effective delegation skills.
- High attention to detail with the ability to juggle competing priorities and deliver multiple tasks within competing timelines.
- Adept at picking up issues quickly and bringing together analysis and different views/inputs to develop a consensus.
- Highly proactive, able to problem-solve and see tasks through to completion.
- Able to work effectively as part of a fast-paced team where priorities can change.
- Able to run large cross-cutting pieces of work, demonstrating high levels of organisation and ability to work through others.
Essential skills and experience:
- An experienced generalist with both policy formulation and delivery experience.
- Effective team-builder, including virtual teams.
- Proven ability to inspire, motivate and lead, with an ability to develop effective and collaborative working relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders, including internal teams and in other government departments.
- Excellent written English and oral communication skills; able to adapt your communication to different audiences. Can lead meetings and present to a high standard.
- Strong analytical skills.
- While this role is not targeted at expert technologies, an interest and an ability to work with technologists is key.
Desirable skills and experience:
- Experience of business change and transformation.
- Experience of finance, procurement and line management.
- Experience of, and interest in, cyber and information technology.
- An understanding of information security and the security profession across Government.
Behaviours
We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Working Together
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Delivering at Pace
- Managing a Quality Service
- Communicating and Influencing
Benefits
- Learning and development tailored to your role.
- An environment with flexible working options.
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
- A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and average employer contributions of 27%.
- A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.