Department for Work and Pensions

Contents

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

Birkenhead, Dudley, Falkirk, Hastings, Leicester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Plymouth

About the job

Job summary

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) touches the lives of every citizen in our country at some point. As the UK government’s largest public service provider, we support people into work, help disabled people live more independent lives, improve housing and tackle homelessness, provide the financial foundation for a secure old age through the State Pension, and ensure children of separated parents have more opportunity to fulfil their potential through a better child maintenance system. We are passionate about making a sustainable and positive impact to people’s lives every day by providing a modern, fair, and affordable welfare system. We seek to be an exemplar of the Modern Civil Service so that we can better deliver for citizens and meet the challenges of tomorrow.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is a directorate within DWP that helps separated parents by encouraging and supporting them to make private financial arrangements, and providing a statutory maintenance service where this is not possible for their children, including taking legal enforcement action to collect money when appropriate. 

Our service is provided by over 4,000 colleagues, across 8 locations, supporting 900,000 children by arranging and collecting over £1.2 Billion in maintenance annually. Our mission is simple, ‘Get money to children’ to support their life chances and help to lift out of poverty.

Job description

This is an exciting time to be joining CMS as we continue with our ambitious programme of service modernisation. As Head of Service, you will have a critical role alongside three colleagues in providing strategic leadership with accountability for all aspects of service delivery, people plans and embedding significant change including digitalisation and demand deduction.

The successful candidate will be responsible for:

• Providing inspirational and resourceful leadership to a large team of up to 1,000 colleagues, across several locations through direct line management of Senior Operational Leaders (Grade 7s), in a complex, fast paced operational environment to deliver a quality service. This will include workforce planning, resource deployment, capability plans and all aspect of performance management to meet service level requirements.
• Leading through a period of accelerated change for the organisation and have an influential role in shaping the strategic direction, communicated to colleagues through our CMS Story – enabling a digital transformation programme that delivers increased efficiency and service improvements and supporting the design and implementation of a new organisational model.
• Demonstrating visible leadership through a commitment to people engagement and driving cultural change by empowering others to develop, you will be expected to continue establishing a culture of continuous improvement through remote line management across multiple sites.
• Lead accountability for specific customer segments providing vision and reporting up to the CMS Executive Team, Director General and Minister, i.e. Applications, Maintenance, Benefits and Telephony and Portfolios i.e., Quality.
• There may be a requirement to lead one of our Service Centres in a sponsorship role.
• As this role covers various locations across the UK, you will be expected to commit to frequent travel and overnight stays.

Person specification

Successful candidates will demonstrate the following Essential Criteria:

• Inspirational and resourceful leadership with a proven track record of leading large multi-site teams with over 500+ colleagues in a service centre environment, making a strong personal impact, demonstrating resilience to deliver against key performance measures timeously and accurately. 
• Excellent communication abilities with proven experience of influencing and motivating people at all levels.
• Confidence managing senior stakeholder relationships, including delivering various communications to a high standard to an array of stakeholders including Ministers, Senior Leaders, and Trade Union.
• Ability to identify, interpret and analyse Management Information (MI), and other data to identify areas for action, key risks, and performance hot spots.
• Ability to understand and lead change, inspiring and obtaining commitment from colleagues by encouraging discussion, innovation, and ideas in support of long-term organisational vision.
• Ability to understand and lead transformational change including channel shift and moving demand into digital services, inspiring and obtaining commitment from colleagues by encouraging discussion, innovation, and ideas in support of long-term organisational vision.
• A passion for building high performing teams, actively promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace to drive an inclusive learning culture and create opportunities for all.
• Experience of driving excellent customer service, particularly in a telephony environment, ensuring service standards fully meet client expectations by challenging and improving processes.

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £72,664, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £21,050 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

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 : Mike Healy
• Email : Mike.Healy@dwp.gov.uk

Recruitment team

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

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact DWP by email: HR.BUSINESSASSURANCE@DWP.GOV.UK.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission. Click here to visit the Civil Service Commission.