London

This role is based in the Government Security Group (GSG), within the Cabinet Office. We are led by the Director-General and Government Chief Security Officer (GCSO), Vincent Devine. We are responsible for the oversight, coordination and delivery of protective security within all central government departments, their agencies and arms-length bodies.

The GCSO also leads the Government Security Function, which seeks to build the capacity and capabilities of security professionals across UK government departments, covering physical, human and information security.

This role reports to the Director for Strategy and Policy, one of three Directors in GSG that work for the GCSO. We primarily contribute to the Cabinet Offices roles in supporting delivery of the governments priorities, strengthening national security and modernising and reforming government.

This is a brilliant opportunity to launch a new unit in the Cabinet Office to oversee and operate the new national security debarment and exclusion powers in the Procurement Act 2023 - a ministerial priority. The Deputy Director for the National Security Unit for Procurement (NSUP) will lead a team of 20 people based across Glasgow and London. They will be responsible for launching this new unit and ensuring it is ready when the Procurement Act comes into force in October 2024.

This exciting role combines a real systems leadership challenge with the prospect of working on fascinating, and sometimes high-profile case work, with the aim of keeping public sector organisations safe from security risks in their supply chain. It will involve close collaboration with a wide range of organisations across the national security community and wider public sector, and some of the most senior decision makers in government.

The key responsibilities for the role will be to:

• Ensure the new NSUP is ready for commencement, recruiting in line with the Cabinet Office locations strategy, based on a realistic assessment of likely workload and financial requirements and ensuring adequate resources are secured to meet these demands.
• Deliver a high-level governance structure, alongside colleagues in the commercial function, to oversee the new NSUP which ensures departments equities are reflected and ministerial decision making is appropriately supported.
• Deliver a policy framework and associated procedures and guidance which sets out how government will operate the new powers in the Act. The job holder will steer contracting authorities and others to ensure decision making is effective, swift, and in line with the governments legal obligations. Key to this will be the management of high profile cases that require sensitive handling.
• Oversee the work of the unit to ensure Cabinet Office ministers receive high quality advice as the unit is established and the new regime is brought into force. The job holder will lead the unit on specific cases as they materialise so that decisions are made on the best possible information and reflect the full range of views across Whitehall.
• Play a leading role in the GSG Senior Management Team, championing the Cabinet Office and GSG values and driving forward the wider corporate agenda.

It is important that, through your CV and supporting statement, that you provide evidence of the following Essential Criteria:

• Proven leadership experience, with the ability to build resilient teams, empower and motivate others across organisational boundaries, and create a culture that motivates staff, promotes diversity and innovation, and delivers results.
• Experience of confidently handling legally-sensitive policy or operational matters, balancing decision-making across multiple priorities.
• A track record of confidently navigating across multiple organisations and capable of drawing upon a wide ranging network to achieve consensus across complex strategic and policy areas.
• Experience of advising and securing the confidence of the most senior leaders, demonstrating an ability to analyse complex issues, and recommend a clear way ahead, able to understand the motivations of others to drive effective decisions.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, able to translate complex policy challenges into a clear, deliverable vision, securing the engagement and support of a range of internal and external groups.

Desirable Criteria:

• Knowledge and experience of government or national security and in particular of mitigating supply chain security risk.
• Knowledge and experience of working in a similar role within a fast-paced, operational and policy environment, ideally working in or with government.
• Knowledge and experience of national security-related issues and of central government or other similarly complex large organisations.

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

• Leadership
• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

Alongside your salary of £75,000, Cabinet Office contributes £20,250 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Whatever your role, we take your career and development seriously, and want to enable you to build a really successful career with the Department and wider Civil Service. It is crucial that our employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead. Youll benefit from a wide range of training and development opportunities, regular performance and development reviews to ensure this development is ongoing. As a Civil Service employee, youll be entitled to a large range of benefits.

This includes:

• 25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years service. This is in addition to 8 public holidays and one privilege day to mark the King's birthday. 
• A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension; where your contributions come out of your salary before any tax is taken; and where your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire;
• Flexible working patterns including part-time or time-term working and access to Flexible Working Schemes allowing you to vary your working day as long as you work your total hours;
• Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers;
• Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle;
• The opportunity to use onsite facilities including fitness centres and staff canteens (where applicable); and
• Occupational sick pay.

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Open to UK nationals only.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

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

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Job contact :

• Name : SCS Recruitment Team
• Email : [email protected]

Recruitment team

• Email : [email protected]