Assistant Skills and Capability Lead, Policy Profession

We recognise the challenges that people with protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities.

We also recognise the importance of bringing in experience from across sectors, so welcome candidates from outside and within the Civil Service.

Are you passionate about how the Civil Service can make excellent policy to improve the lives of citizens across the country?

Would you like to be part of a fun, dynamic team building skills and capability across the department?

Do you want to work with teams across the Department for Transport and other departments to design and deliver innovative, ambitious projects?

If so, we’d love to hear from you.

All civil servants belong to a profession. Policy professionals work at the heart of the Civil Service to design, develop and propose appropriate courses of action to help meet key government priorities and ministerial objectives. We have over 1,000 policy professionals in DfT, and the Policy Profession team works to build skills, capability and systems to ensure we’re making the highest-quality policy. We do this through a mixture of training and resources, communications and community-building, and ensuring our processes for policymaking, recruitment and professional are the best they can be.

We’re looking for an exceptional individual to join the Policy Profession team.

This role will give you the opportunity to design and deliver projects, working closely with policy teams across the department, teams working to support other professions (such as our Analytical Profession and Science and Engineering Profession), and other government departments, including the Cabinet Office. It’s an exciting time to join the team, as we’re refreshing our long-term vision and strategy for the Profession. You’ll have a real opportunity to shape that vision and the activities which will help us deliver it.

We’re a small but lively team sitting in DfT’s Strategy Unit, right at the heart of the Department and working in close collaboration with ministers and permanent secretaries. We pride ourselves on our open, inclusive culture and our commitment to innovation and challenge. We’ll help you to reach your full potential, offering rewarding and challenging opportunities to develop yourself and your career.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Working closely with the Department’s senior leaders and teams across the department to understand opportunities and challenges for DfT’s policymaking capabilities.
• Designing and delivering initiatives to build DfT’s policy capabilities. This might include developing training materials and resources, organising and delivering events, building communities of best practice and supporting teams to develop innovative approaches to specific policy projects.
• Overseeing governance of the Policy Profession, including acting as secretariat for the Policy Profession Steering Group.
• Building and maintaining strong working relationships with senior leaders and working level contacts across the department and other departments, including by engaging with cross-department and cross-profession groups.
• Working to improve diversity and inclusion among the Policy Profession, and to support integration of diversity and inclusion considerations into policymaking.
• Developing and implementing an approach to monitoring and evaluation of the Policy Profession’s work.

For further information, please see the attached Role Profile.

About you:

We are looking for a creative individual who can promote innovation and can shape how the department moves forward when policy making. You will be proactive, self-motivated and comfortable working autonomously. You will be adaptable to emerging priorities and will remain flexible when managing adversity.

You will be passionate about helping your colleagues develop and use the skills and tools they need to make an impact through their work. You will enjoy working in a flexible environment and possess strong planning and organisational skills, enabling you to balance a busy and varied workload while maintaining good attention to detail.

You will be an articulate communicator, both verbally and in writing, who demonstrates a high degree of accuracy. You will feel confident communicating with colleagues of all levels, including the senior leadership team.

If you’d like to discuss the role further, please contact the vacancy holder.

Additional Information:

A minimum of 40% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace, although requirements to attend other locations for official business, or carry out detached duty in another DfT workplace, will also count towards this level of attendance.

Occasional travel to other DfT offices is encouraged but not essential.

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

• Changing and Improving
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Developing Self and Others

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Strategy Level 1.3 – Participation and engagement
• Delivery Level 3.2 – Governance and policy

Job contact :

• Name : Matt Stokes
• Email : matt.stokes@dft.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : dftrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk