Policy Officer: Emergency Preparedness and Response

Details

Reference number

323803

Salary

£42,208

The salary for this role is £42,208 (London). For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If you apply for a role that requires a transfer of location, for example if you are transferring from London to a National location, your salary will be adjusted in accordance with our policy on transfer between HQ pay ranges.

A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Job grade

Senior Executive Officer

Contract type

Permanent

Type of role

Policy

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

Number of jobs available

1

Contents

Location
About the job
Benefits
Things you need to know
Apply and further information

Location

London

About the job

Job summary

Interested in supporting the government’s response to emergencies? The Central Response Coordination Unit is a high-profile team within the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities that will help the DLUHC to fulfil its role in responding to emergencies and other major events. This is a uniquely dynamic, fast paced and rewarding area of work. We are passionate about our role in protecting the public, and the local areas we represent. Wellbeing is also central to how we work – especially when dealing with challenging subject matter – and results in strong team bonds.
The CRCU is a newly established, permanent, cross-cutting team, resourced to deliver in two key areas for the department:

Preparing for emergencies: proactively preparing the department to respond to threats and hazards, putting in place departmental arrangements for responding to incidents, ready for activation; and
Emergency response: holding the key coordinating role across DLUHC when a response requires cross-departmental activity, managing the ‘GOLD’ structure and situational reporting when required.

Key priorities for CRCU for both these areas are below.
Building DLUHC-wide resilience (preparedness)
CRCU reports to the Director of Resilience and Recovery, but will form strategic links out across the department, particularly, where these are undeveloped.

CRCU will work with existing resilience teams to proactively scan the horizon for threats and hazards where the wider department hold an interest and in case of an incident, might be called upon.
CRCU will maintain an overview and engagement with individual risk playbooks, testing and exercising.
CRCU will engage with teams, including ALB sponsorship teams, that might hold relevant interests across DLUHC and build awareness of their responsibilities in time of crisis.

Coordinating the department’s response to emergencies (response)

CRCU will hold the key coordinating role across DLUHC, holding a bird’s-eye view, to identify opportunities to strengthen our intelligence, data, policy or protocol including the need for a policy decision.
CRCU will maintain a departmental emergency response plan, setting out departmental arrangements for responding to a range of crisis events, including concurrency and an exit strategy. CRCU will also maintain these documents, so they are ready for activation at short notice.
CRCU will support the SRO as the key interface with Ministers and the Executive Team by commissioning high quality briefing.
CRCU will hold overall ownership of the departmental SitRep (Situational Report) and the tracking of key strategic actions and the management and secretariat of the key cross-cutting meetings.

Job description

This SEO role will play a vital part in supporting CRCU to action its longer-term priorities as outlined above.
You will lead on the development of a programme of training and exercising for resilience-focused staff across DLUHC, to ensure all relevant teams are well-prepared heading into future emergency response scenarios
You will work closely with the People, Capability and Change (PC&C) Directorate to ensure DLUHC has appropriate emergency staffing plans in place
You will support CRCU in an emergency response by servicing the GOLD Coordination Group to oversee the strategic direction of the response, build situational awareness, and provide briefing for senior officials and ministers.
You will also help to influence CRCU’s longer-term work on preparedness and response, supporting the team to develop ‘business as usual’ structures.

Person specification

Essential:

Excellent organisational skills and the ability to meet strict deadlines.
The ability to work with a wide range of stakeholders across the department, building strong relationships to allow joint delivery.
The ability to demonstrate inclusive leadership and engage a team to deliver improved outcomes and seek new ways of working.
The ability to communicate complex information succinctly, clearly and with insight.

Desirable:

Experience of working in a coordination or resilience role.
Experience of engaging with data and analysis work.

We particularly welcome candidates from an ethnic minority background and other underrepresented groups to apply, as we work to continually improve our ability to represent the places and communities we support through our work.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £42,208, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities contributes £11,400 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

We are for everyone
At DLUHC we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We promote equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and a working environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying and victimisation.
We would strongly recommend that applicants get in touch with the vacancy manager to find out more information about this role.
We are for everyone
DLUHC want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels.
Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise).
At application stage you will be asked to upload a CV document. Unless stated otherwise in the advert, your CV will not form part of the assessment but will be used for information purposes and only shared with the panel at interview stage.
Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible.
Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.
When writing your application, remember:

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 -(lead behaviour) Delivering at Pace
Behaviour 2 – Seeing the big picture
Behaviour 3 – Communicating and Influencing
Behaviour 4 – Working Together

There is a 250 word limit per question.
In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progress straight to assessment/interview

The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements:
Behaviour – Seeing the big picture, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Delivering at Pace
Strength – Yes
The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.

In the full campaign we will test the below Success Profile Elements:

Behaviours: Seeing the big picture, Communicating and Influencing, Working Together, Delivering at Pace
Strengths: Yes

We do not consider direct CV applications to our Recruitment mailbox – you must apply for this role via the application link on Civil Service Jobs
Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign.

SEO salary

The salary for this role is £42,208 (London)

For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If you apply for a role that requires a transfer of location, for example if you are transferring from London to a National location, your salary will be adjusted in accordance with our policy on transfer between HQ pay ranges.

Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation’s terms and conditions.
BENEFITS:
Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018: Any move to DLUHC from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk
For further information about the benefits available to DLUHC employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack.

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION:

London

There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role.

SIFT AND INTERVIEW DATES:
Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 15/11/2023 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall.
Reserve List In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details on a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list.

CTC (Counter-terrorism Clearance):
Important note
Successful candidates for roles based in our 2 Marsham Street building must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete. Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the CTC security checks – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 3 years. Please refer to the DLUHC Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Counter Terrorism Clearance (CTC). Thank you. Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by DLUHC. Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database.

Candidate Pack Information
Please see attached Candidate pack for further information.
Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the DLUHC candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules

Internal Fraud Database
The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented.
For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

UK nationals
nationals of the Republic of Ireland
nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

Name :

Will Jacobs

Email :

william.jacobs@levellingup.gov.uk

Recruitment team

Email :

recruitment@levellingup.gov.uk