Chief of Staff

**Chief of staff**

**Contract Term: 6 Months**

**Contracting Authority: Cabinet Office**

**Location: Hybrid working, 1 - 2 days in the office a week (London, Bristol or Manchester)**

The Chief of Staff is key in managing and developing strategic relationships between CDDO and the wider cabinet office and government. Representing the Chair of CDDO and the Chief Executive, the Chief of Staff drives forward their priorities, working closely with the Deputy Director of Transformation, Change and Operations.

**As a Chief of Staff your main responsibilities would be**:
Act as an informed advisor to the Chair and Executive director, providing clear and rapid analysis of key issues and strategies across the government digital, data and technology space, and Cabinet Office. You will provide independent advice and challenge on most difficult and complex projects. You will be scanning across many interdependent workstreams piecing together disparate strands to spot and mitigate emergent issues and unblock them. You will also need to anticipate future events to ensure that the Chair and Executive Director are aware of key issues

Manage and act as a point of contact for senior stakeholders, ministers and DDaT board members on behalf of the Chair and Executive Director, liaising and sharing information on key priorities and ensuring connections are made between Cabinet office colleagues and CDDO teams. Proactively build relationships and networks with private office colleagues across government for key strategic relationships.

Drive forward the Chair and Executive Director’s priorities in CDDO, ensuring they align with the Executive Directors priorities and government strategy. You will need to unblock and anticipate issues across government and in CDDO and ensure seniors are positioned to act in the most impactful way that progresses DDaT goals for government, and that the CDDO strategy progresses at pace.

Join up the work of the Chief Executive and Chair, ensuring they are briefed clearly and regularly on their individual priorities and aligned and operating 3 together. Run the Executive Team meetings to ensure they are focused on the right priorities to run CDDO successfully

Support the Chair, Executive Director and Deputy Director of operations with the design and delivery of the CDDO business strategy, ensuring it aligns with key senior stakeholder priorities and the DDaT strategy

Lead a high performing Private Office and DDaT Governance and Parliamentary correspondence function. The office must ensure that the Executive Director and Chair’s time is allocated effectively to the most pressing issues by mitigating and escalating risks where required. Your team will commission briefings and sequence meetings to align to the Executive Director’s strategic objectives and deadlines. Your team will also set up the cross-government DDaT governance and hold the responsibility for CDDO’s legal obligations on parliamentary correspondence

Quickly gain the confidence of the Executive Director, Chair and other senior stakeholders, and demonstrate your ability to deal with sensitive and confidential issues as they arise

**You’ll have relevant experience in**:
Strong negotiation skills and proven experience of managing senior stakeholders to deliver results

Experience in leading a high performing team that can operate at pace and within ambiguity

The ability to shape an influence strategy to ensure that organisational priorities are realised

The ability to digest a wide range of information at pace; turning this into clear advice for senior stakeholders, handling both quantitative and qualitative evidence to make decisions

Experience in improving the overall health / operating environment of an organisation through its people strategy

Significant experience of building and maintaining effective relationships, using a variety of channels to get the best results. Have significant experience of working with multiple stakeholders across a large and diverse audience

**Must hold **active** SC Clearance**- Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas._