Policy Adviser – Adult Skills London, England
Job description
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Senior Executive Officer
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Location
About the job
Benefits
Things you need to know
Apply and further information
Location
About the job
Job summary
About HM Treasury
If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives across the country, the Treasury is the department for you! We sit at the centre of everything that the Government does and have provided advice on economic policy and decisions that affect the public finances throughout the country’s history. A Treasury career continues to offer an exciting opportunity to be part of the decision making that affects the whole of the UK.
Working at the heart of government, we collaborate with other departments to ensure public money is spent well and to drive strong and sustainable economic growth. Our work ranges from protecting customers through to the regulation of the financial sector, helping to reduce carbon emissions and creating a greener economy, supporting people across the country through the COVID 19 furlough scheme and Plan for Jobs as well as helping first time buyers buy their first home.
HM Treasury is proud of a diverse and inclusive work environment, committed to fairness and the promotion of equality of opportunity for all. We know that having a range of experiences, ways of working and thinking makes us a stronger organisation, better at developing policy that is reflective of the communities we serve. We embrace different views and experiences and value the fresh perspective that people from a variety of circumstances bring to the work we do. We welcome applications from candidates who have not previously worked for the Civil Service, mid- and late-career changers with transferrable skills, people from all backgrounds and circumstances regardless of disability, gender, age ethnicity, LGBT+ identity and socio-economic status. If
The Darlington Economic Campus is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring people together across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important issues of the day.
HM Treasury in Darlington will be joined by the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Office for National Statistics, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the Competition and Markets Authority, the Department for Education and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Job description
About the group - Public Services Group
The Public Services Group is at the heart of the Treasury’s work to secure strong and sustainable public finances. We manage public spending of more than £250 billion across key public services and departments, including health, education, the police, the criminal justice system, local government, housing, defence and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
We do this by working with other government departments, ministers, and other Treasury teams to ensure that spending plans support high quality public services and provide value for money for the taxpayer.
Our roles offer a range of opportunities to work with senior leaders in other government departments, as well as helping to ensure the effective delivery of public services that so many people rely on.
About the team - Education & Skills team
The Education and Skills team is high profile, friendly and supportive team with oversight of a range of areas – ranging from children’s social care and childcare through to schools, further education, and higher education. Our core role as a spending team is to advise Treasury ministers on education spending proposals, help the Department for Education to live within their budget, and work with DfE and other parts of the Treasury to ensure that we have an education and skills system which meets the needs of the future economy.
We are a team of around 20 people who put a strong emphasis on an inclusive and open culture that makes use of everyone’s talents! We are especially proud of our track record in helping our team members to develop and make the most of the opportunities available whilst being in the team.
Key accountabilities
We are recruiting for a policy adviser to join the Adult Skills branch of the team.
This is a particularly interesting time to work on Adult Skills policy at the Treasury. The Government has committed to significant reforms as part of the Skills for Jobs White Paper, including simplifying how the adult skills system is funded and held accountable for delivering good outcomes. The government has committed to spend an extra £3.8 billion on skills by the end of this Parliament and the Department for Education is investing in programmes such as skills bootcamps and Multiply, a new government-funded program to help adults improve their numeracy skills.
The job will provide high-profile experience in both scrutinising individual programmes and strategically shaping ongoing reforms to ensure the adult skills system is affordable, represents good value for money, and will contribute to productivity and economic growth.
This is a stretching role requiring strong decision-making skills, a keen eye for detail and an ability to see and shape the bigger picture The role will require building expert knowledge of the policy area and funding systems, and developing strong working relationships across HMT and DfE.
Among other responsibilities, the postholder will be expected to:
- Develop the Treasury’s position on a range of Adult Skills spending and policy issues –taking into account strategic, fiscal and economic priorities – and prepare and produce high quality advice and briefing to ministers on these areas.
- Build excellent working relationships with colleagues in the wider Treasury & DfE to scrutinise and influence policy development.
- Work confidently with evidence, data, and numbers to ensure decisions are made based on the best available information and analysis.
- Lead spending control functions for the Adult Skills branch, including scrutinising spending proposals and offering constructive challenge to DfE on plans.
We encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply, and actively promote and encourage flexible working arrangements across the organisation.
We would encourage applicants to get in touch with the hiring manager, Zach Ward-Perkins ([email protected]), to find out more about this role before applying.
Person specification
Essential Criteria
Required Skills, Experience and Behaviours:
The below criteria will be assessed in your application form.
1. The lead criteria is: Seeing the Big Picture – Maintaining an understanding of the economic, political, and fiscal context and drawing on this to inform recommendations.
If we receive large volumes of applications, we will conduct an initial sift on the lead criteria only, which will usually be a behaviour. This may be an experience or technical skill, but only where critical to the position.
We will assess the below further criteria in your application form;
2. Making Effective Decisions – Analysing quantitative and qualitative information from a variety of sources to inform decisions, including identifying key strengths and weaknesses in complex arguments.
3. Working Together – Building and maintaining strong networks to achieve progress on shared objectives, including providing constructive challenge.
Candidate Guidance on Completing your Application Form
Where will we assess success profiles across your application form.
- Behaviours - these will be assessed individually with a 250-word statement per behaviour. The application form will indicate which behaviour is being assessed each time you provide a statement, and we are ideally looking for an example using the below STAR method to demonstrate this behaviour in line with the full criteria stated
All elements of the success profiles will be linked to a defined criterion that demonstrates the behaviour, experience or technical skills. It is beneficial to ensure your answer focuses on the full criteria, and not just the related success profile, to give you the best chance or providing the evidence the panel wants to assess.
In your statements, it is best to focus on one example in each section to allow you to provide enough detail in your answer and use all the words you have been allocated. Examples from a range of roles across your application will demonstrate that you have the skills, experience and behaviours we are looking for. We would also advise you to use examples that best meet the criteria, even if it is a few years old.
How to Structure your Answer
Please use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach when writing your application answers.
- Situation - Describe the situation you found yourself in and what happened.
- Task - The Hiring Manager will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation that you found yourself in.
- Action - What actions did you take and how did you do it. Make sure to use “I”, not “we” to explain how your actions lead to a result.
- Result - Use facts and statistics to demonstrate the results that your actions produced. Explain whether it was a successful outcome, and if not, what you learned from the experience.
Notes to Candidates
- Please refer to the candidate FAQ document which is a link on the job advert – this will provide you with guidance on completing the application form. Please contact [email protected] if you have any issue accessing this document.
- At HM Treasury, to maximise diversity and inclusion within our workforce, we operate a fair, open and anonymous recruitment process. This means that the sift panel will only be able to assess you on the written evidence supplied in your application answers. They will not have access to personal information.
- You may be asked to provide some CV details during your application; however these will NOT be assessed during the process, but will be used to support discussions at interview – please ensure you put all information you would like to be scored against in your behaviour, experience and technical skill statements .
- You will be assessed on your skills, experience and behaviours through the online application form. When completing your application form, please outline how you meet the requirements as detailed in the ‘Essential Criteria ‘section of this job description. This will give you the best chance to provide the evidence that the panel wants to assess. More guidance can be found here – completing your application.
- If we receive a large number of applications, applications will be assessed initially against the lead criterion alone. You will then be assessed against the other criteria if you have met the minimum score on the first criterion.
- Find out more about how the Civil Service assesses candidates and uses Success Profiles to test skills, experience and behaviours in applications and interviews.
- Applications are not reviewed until the closing date has passed. You will be notified of the outcome of your application as soon as the recruitment panel has reviewed all the applications.
Support to Candidates
Candidate Guidance Support Session
We will be running an overview of Success Profiles and the STAR approach; top tips for the application and interview process and an opportunity to ask general questions around our recruitment practices. If you would like to join us, then use the link below to join the call at the right time.
Tuesday 21st 12:30
Interview
At the interview stage, applicants for this post will be assessed against the criteria set out in the job description which may include Technical Skills, Experiences and Behaviours – however the panel will ask you about different aspects of these at the interview. The interview panel may add additional behaviours to those assessed at sift, if they do so they will be noted below.
Behaviours assessed at interview
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Making Effective Decisions
- Working Together
Interview task
Prior to your interview, we will contact you about a task that the interview panel would like you to complete as part of the assessment. The exact details will be communicated nearer the time.
Strength based interview questions
The interview panel will ask you questions about what you enjoy doing and what you do well and often to assess your strengths. When looking at your strengths, we want to find out whether you and the organisation and job are a good fit.
More details regarding assessment at interview can be provided upon request at any time during the application or interview process.
Recruitment Timeline:
Closing date: 26th February 2023
Sift: w/c 27th February 2023
Interviews: w/c 6th/13th March 2023
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Making Effective Decisions
- Working Together
Benefits
- 25 days’ annual leave (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King's birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant)
- Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, condensed hours)
- A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and average employer contributions of 27%
- Onsite restaurant and coffee bar. The London office also offers a gym, showers and prayer room
- Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme, season ticket advances and payroll giving
- Access to a retail discounts and cashback site
- A Rental Deposit Advance Scheme to help meet the total costs of deposits for privately rented homes
- A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity (e.g. women in the Treasury, ethnic minority network, LGBT* network, faith and belief network)
Flexible working arrangements:
HM Treasury views flexible working as essential in enabling us to recruit and retain talented people, ensuring that they are able to enjoy a long-lasting career with us. All employees have the right to apply for flexible working and there are a range of options available including; working from home, compressed hours and job sharing. Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month, providing you work enough hours to meet business need.
We also offer a generous parental and adoption leave package.
At HM Treasury we have an incredibly broad remit; our work touches every citizen of the country. So, it’s important our employees come from the widest possible range of backgrounds, bringing us the widest possible range of perspectives and ways of thinking. We are committed to ensuring that all staff are able to realise their potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
As part of our pre-employment security checks, if you are invited to interview and are not a current HM Treasury member of staff, you will need to bring:
- Proof of identity, e.g. your passport or driver’s license. Documents must be in date and valid.
- Proof of address, e.g. a utility bill or bank statement issued within the past 3 months
- Proof of your National Insurance (NI) number, e.g. letter from DWP confirming your NI number, or P60
- If you do not bring a UK or EU passport, you will need to bring other documentation of your right to work in the UK, e.g. your visa, biometric residence permit or birth certificate.
- If your right to work is granted through the EU Settlement Scheme, alongside you proof of identity you will need to provide either a letter of application or status outcome letter from the Home Office. If you are successful in being appointed to the role you will also be required to provide a Right to Work Share Code
Further details regarding acceptable documents will be provided in the invitation to interview. If you cannot provide in the first instance, the above documentation required for employment checks, at interview, please contact [email protected], If you are offered the role, we will require all documentation, as this is part of the security vetting process. If you do not provide this at interview stage, this may slow down the process and delay your start date.
If your contact details change at any time during the selection process, please ensure you update your Civil Service Jobs Profile.
Eligibility Statement
Individuals appointed to the Treasury Group will be subject to National Security Vetting. To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out applicants will normally need to have lived in the UK for at least 3 out of the past 5 years. A lack of UK residency in itself is not always a bar to security clearance but the Department will need to consider eligibility on a case by case basis using all information that can be obtained following a successful application. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.
Everyone working with government assets must complete Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks.
For many roles, security clearance is also required. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements of the role before they can be appointed. The level of security clearance required for this role is Counter Terrorist Check (CTC).
Please read the Vetting Charter for information on what to expect during the vetting process and what will be expected from you.
Many areas of your life may be explored during your vetting journey, and it is important that every individual, regardless of their background and experiences, should feel comfortable going through this personal process, whilst having confidence that it is fair, proportionate, and inclusive.
These short videos address common concerns and preconceptions which applicants may have about national security vetting.
If you have questions relating to security clearances, please contact [email protected].
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
Nationality requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
- relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
- certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals
Working for the Civil Service
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).
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