Policy Officer

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 358070**Salary**:

- £32,178- A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%**Job grade**:

- Higher Executive Officer**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- Local Government and Communities incl Integration**Type of role**:

- Policy**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Birmingham, Bristol, Darlington, Leeds, London, Manchester, WolverhamptonAbout the job

**Job summary**:

- We are a friendly, supportive, high-performing and flexible team, working in a complex, demanding, politically sensitive and high-profile environment. We are looking for someone who wants to make a difference in how local government is run. Local authorities are independent of central government and are responsible for providing local services. The Secretary of State has powers to intervene where there is evidence of significant and systemic failure to secure best value for local residents. There are currently statutory interventions in Birmingham, Croydon, Nottingham, Slough, Thurrock and Woking. Each initiative of this type involves detailed and rewarding work - taking a local authority from the brink of disaster to success. We are looking for one HEO to join our Local Government Interventions Team to support our G7 and SEO intervention leads. The role will likely involve assessing whether powers should be used, supporting Ministers in putting in place inspections and interventions, overseeing the publication of reports and Ministerial responses, and providing advice on ending interventions.**Job description**:

- Work with colleagues within the team (usually to more than 1 G7), other teams in the Directorate and Group, and across Whitehall
- Have exposure to working with councils and Secretary of State appointed experts leading the interventions, including providing ad-hoc support to departmental colleagues in Chief of Staff teams who directly support the Secretary of State appointed experts
- Support the intervention lead to advise Ministers, drafting ministerial policy advice and supporting documentation such as appointment letters and directions, information letters, equality impact assessments and parliamentary materials

**Person specification**:

- An ability to work collaboratively, build a consensus and influence outcomes, both within and outside HM Government.
- Strong oral and written skills and the ability to relay detailed information succinctly and clearly using a range of different communication methods.
- Demonstrate a positive approach to your work, with the ability to balance competing demands whilst delivering high quality outputs.
- A track record of demonstrating resilience and flexibility under pressure with the ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.
- Strong organisational skills.
- An interest in the local government sector in the broad sense, passionate about ensuring good outcomes for the current and future sector and its partners.

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

- Working Together
- Communicating and Influencing
- Delivering at Pace

**Benefits**:

- Alongside your salary of £32,178, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £8,688 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Things you need to know

**Selection process details**:

- This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Strengths.As part of our pre-employment checking process we will be using your CV to confirm your job history. Please note that by providing us with your CV you are consenting to us using the information enclosed as part of the checking process.

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.
- The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially.
- Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers.
- If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on)

**At sift, we will be assessing**

Behaviour 1: Working Together (lead behaviour)

Behaviour 2: Communicating and Influencing

Behaviour 3: Delivering at Pace
- There is a 250 word limit per question._

**The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements**:
Behaviour: Working Together, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace

**In the full campaign we w