Private Office: Private Secretary to The Secretary of State

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

- 401955

**Salary**:

- £61,089 - £71,675
- Effective from 1 July 2024
- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

GBP

**Job grade**:

- Grade 7

**Contract type**:

- Permanent

**Business area**:

- DWP - Private Office

**Type of role**:

- Policy

**Working pattern**:

- Full-time, Job share

**Number of jobs available**:

- 1

**Contents**:

- Location
- About the job
- Benefits
- Things you need to know

**Location**:

- Westminster, London

**About the job**:
**Job summary**:
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is recruiting for the role of Private Secretary to the Secretary of State.

The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible for social security, labour market, pensions, and child maintenance policy. As the UK’s biggest public service department, we administer the State Pension and a range of working age, disability, and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers. What we do matters to millions of people every day.

Private Office is crucial to providing effective support and advice to Ministers and Special Advisers across all aspects of Departmental business, acting as the key interface between the Department and Ministers to deliver DWP’s critical agenda.

**Job description**:
The Private Office is a high-performing, dynamic, supportive and inclusive team. This is a demanding but rewarding role for someone interested in working closely with Ministers, Special Advisers and senior officials.

This post reports to the Deputy Principal Private Secretary.

In this role you will:

- Advise and work directly with the Secretary of State, her Special Advisers and the wider Ministerial Team to support them in delivering their priorities
- Work with senior stakeholders across the Department, including policy, the communications directorate and operations, as well as across Whitehall, to provide the Ministerial Team with high quality and timely advice
- Support the Secretary of State in a wide range of internal and Cross-Government meetings and external engagements
- Be an active member of the Private Office Senior Management Team

The opportunity to work closely with the Secretary of State, Special Advisers and senior officials
- An exciting, fast-paced and challenging work environment that involves dealing with complex policy and operational issues
- The chance to be part of a supportive team with plenty of opportunities to learn and develop new skills
- The opportunity to broaden understanding of DWP policy, parliamentary business and cross-government functions

**Person specification**:
We are looking for a high-performing, resilient and energetic person with excellent communication skills who can work independently and as part of a wider team to deliver for the Secretary of State

You will need to manage a heavy workload, prioritise effectively and enjoy working in a fast-moving environment.

Experience of working with Ministers or senior leaders is desirable but not essential.

**Essential Criteria**
- An ability to work collaboratively and flexibly with others and within a dynamic team, often to short deadlines and to achieve common goals, maintaining a high level of service **(Lead Criteria)**:

- Strong interpersonal, relationship building and communication skills
- Confidence to engage daily with the department’s most senior leaders, including Ministers, the Permanent Secretary and Director Generals
- Excellent judgement and approach to situations, tasks and problems, and a self-starter who can work independently
- An ability to deliver to tight deadlines quickly but effectively, whilst remaining professional in a pressured environment
- A strong track record in managing a high-quality service, and the ability to manage competing priorities and deal pragmatically with sometimes conflicting priorities
- A flexible outlook and approach, coupled with a real enthusiasm for taking responsibility for high-quality work, demonstrating personal resilience and strong attention to detail

Due to the nature of the role, it may be necessary to work long hours, including weekends, especially when Parliament is sitting, for which an allowance is payable.

The role is full time and job share.

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

- Communicating and Influencing
- Delivering at Pace
- Seeing the Big Picture

**Benefits**:

- Alongside your salary of £61,089, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £17,697 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 employe